On My Own
by littleclarestar
Summary: Reluctantly running the family house & estate on an island off the West Coast of Scotland, having inadvertently run it towards bankruptcy, ex Soldier Edward Cullen has help forced upon him by the bank, in the shape of one I Swan.
1. Prologue

**Here we go again. On My Own. With the original incarnation of Kiltward. Its coming back to you, piece by piece. Here's the prologue and the rest of it is on its way (slowly, but it's on its way!)**

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my eternally patient betas and to Rae Cullen for pre-reading.**

**Thank you also to everyone who PM'd, tweeted and emailed when OMO came off this website. I appreciated everyone's support and concern. Everything is fine, and I just had to make some changes, that's all! Promise that basically it's the same. And it's finished. And you'll get it all back. **

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the places. Official disclaimer is own my profile page and on my website (link is on the profile page)**

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It was at exactly eight thirty three in the evening when the ferry pulled into Crannoch Dubh's main ferry port.

I watched it from the pub, from _my _pub, the pub which had a sign above the door stating that I was legally allowed to sell alcohol. To be honest, the term _ferry port_ was probably a bit of an exaggeration. Ferry port insinuated it held a teaming metropolis of boats, ferries and general sea traffic. Reality dictated otherwise as there was only room for one ferry. Okay, so it was a big ferry boat, a huge ferry boat. It carried nearly a thousand people, over eighty cars and brought our frozen food, coffee and toilet rolls to the local stores.

And it brought beer to the island's six pubs.

Most importantly to the island, it brought tourists in; visitors who traded their incomes for a look at quaint island life, those who looked past the mainland and more popular islands like Mull. They made the passage on a boat the size of an ocean ferry, whose journey only lasted ninety three minutes.

Known by the locals as _The Boat_.

It ran five times a day from Crannoch Dubh to Oban, also making the return trip from Oban to Crannoch Dubh. Less in Winter, more in Summer, with one late boat a week on Fridays. Some days its journey ended on the island and sometimes dropped anchor for the last time on the mainland. Either way, the days' last ferry landing in Crannoch Dubh carried me home.

Often as not, the Crannoch Dubh Ferry took me away from the island, from my home, from the remains of my family, from my hell on earth, to anywhere; my old career, my old life, any other place but here.

Today, I waited as it was theoretically bringing me my future. It was bringing the person who would decide, at the whim of my lawyers and the bank, how I could run my business, my life, my home.

I was not happy about this. Not happy at all. I nursed my double Grouse glaring at it in the false light of the pub's ceiling lamps, twisting my wrist so the golden liquid swirled around in the glass.

He could just fuck off. I didn't need help. I didn't need. I could do this.

On. My. Own.

_Edward Cullen needs no one._

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**Crannoch Dubh is pronounced**_** Cran-nogh Dooo. **_**Its Gaelic and roughly means black artificial island. It's not a real place. I made it up.**

**If you've not reviewed before, please do. As I said at the top, the rest of this story is on its way, but it not all in one go. **

**Thank you for being so patient with me.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my eternally patient betas. Here's the rejig of Chapter One. Others are on their way. Still slowly. Sorry 'bout that.**

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the places. Official disclaimer is own my profile page and on my website (link is on the profile page)**

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The first letter arrived as I was still nursing my New Year's hangover.

_The Bank of The Highlands  
Loch Ness Way  
Inverness  
IV1 1OO_

January 5th 2009

_E. A. Cullen  
Glen Glas  
Isle Of Gallan PA101_

_Dear Mr. Cullen,_

_Your current loan deadline has now expired. According to our records and referring to your signed agreement from January 1st 2008, you are required to settle this loan account by close of business December 31st 2008._

_Please contact your branch manager to rectify this issue and have the appropriate funds deposited in our favor._

_If you have settled your account recently, please disregard this notice._

_Yours sincerely_

_J Black  
The Bank of The Highlands_

I fired off an email straight away to Jacob. He had been my personal banker since I'd taken over Glen Glas, and we were on fairly good terms, though I probably should still have waited until my head stopped hurting from four days of drinking with Mike, Emmett and Jasper to send the email.

_To:Jacob Black (work)  
From:Edward Cullen_

_7th January 2009 11:06am_

_Jake,_

_You know I've not paid the loan back. You know why. Why the letter?_

_Edward_

Within five minutes my machine pinged at me, louder than necessary. I dragged my heavy head off the cluttered desk, patting one of the dogs on the head, who was pressed to the legs of my chair, hoping for toast crusts.

_To:Edward Cullen  
From:Jacob Black (Oban)_

_7th January 2009 11:11am_

_Dear Mr. Cullen,_

_The terms of your loan dictate that you repay the loan by the 31__st__ of December, 2008._

_There is still an outstanding balance of £456,909.43._

_Jacob Black  
Senior Personal Banker  
Bank of the Highlands, Oban Branch._

Jacob Black, Senior Personal Banker? What the fuck? This from the guy who'd got me so drunk the Friday before Christmas that he'd had to let me sleep on his sofa after I'd missed the late ferry back to Gallan.

_To:Jacob Black (work)  
From:Edward Cullen_

_7th January 2009 11:15am_

_Jake,_

_What the fuck? Have you turned into a pansy-arsed girl over the New Year holiday? You knew I wouldn't be able to settle the debt until the top field was sold. As you know it's still not sold, seeing as Leah is our lawyer and land agent, although Carlisle thought the English family who has just bought the house nearby the field might be interested._

_Stop giving me a hard time. You don't usually complain about my payments. OK, so you do complain, but I do always pay it back._

_Edward_

I pressed send, not knowing if the message made much sense. A moment later, I buzzed upstairs and Alice answered the phone.

"What d'ya want, Cullen Junior?" she sang at me. I couldn't understand how her head didn't hurt like mine.

"Tea. No, wait... Black coffee. Strong," I bit back, annoyed at her apparent lack of hangover.

"Get it yourself, you lazy bastard. You know where the kitchen is. In fact …" I hung up on her before she could go any further.

My computer pinged again

_To:Edward Cullen  
From:Jacob Black (Oban)_

_7th January 2009 11:23am_

_Dear Mr. Cullen,_

_The terms of your loan dictate that you repay the loan by the 31__st__ of December, 2008._

_There is still an outstanding balance of £456,909.43._

_Please call my office as soon as possible so we can resolve this situation._

_Jacob Black  
Senior Personal Banker  
Bank of The Highlands, Oban Branch_

As I read this, my computer pinged again.

_To:Eddie-Boy Cullen  
From:Jacob Black_

_7th January 2009 11:25am_

_Edward, you dipshit!_

_The powers that be are on my arse about your loan. You have to pay it back. I'm stalling the best I can. Stop sending crappy replies to my work email. They are going to kick my arse from here to the head office in Inverness and back again at this rate. We need to talk, seriously, and without alcohol._

_Jake._

_To:Jacob-Wolfboy Black  
From:Edward Cullen_

_7th January 2009 11:28am_

_Jake,_

_Sorry mate. I'll call you once I've got some coffee in me. Give me fifteen minutes._

_Edward_

I shut my email down and looked through the windows which covered one wall of my office, sighing at the flurries of snow still falling.

My office had dual aspect windows, one over looking the gardens, the other towards the loch which opened into the sea. It was my refuge, a tatty little room on the ground floor and near the back of the house. Without central heating I counted on the large and usually roaring fireplace for warmth. The two walls without windows were covered in various types of paper. One was smothered in photographs from my army days along with pictures of the family, and some photographs of the house Rose had taken and framed for me. The other wall was covered in maps, timetables, rotas and general house related information. Below _those_ bits of paper was the huge fireplace which was currently not roaring in any way, shape or form. Ashes lined the bottom, logs on the hearth to the right with kindling and paper to the left. I hadn't managed to get my sorry soul over there to light the damn thing and as such was sitting in my office in a tee shirt and jeans, albeit with two sweaters and a Glen Glas green logo'd fleece over the tee-shirt. The green police would be proud of me, sitting here using layers and layers of clothing to stay warm. We wouldn't tell them that it's because I couldn't be bothered to sort the fire out. I rubbed my eyes and sighed again.

_Coffee time._ Then it would be time to ring Jake for the inevitable and nightmarish conversation about money, or my lack thereof.

I collected the stupidly large number of dirty, half empty cups that littered my desk and headed up the four flights of winding concrete stairs to my flat to get some coffee. I walked slowly, enjoying the solitude. Usually it was just me living there, but as the family had decided to invade my space for Christmas and New Year, and as the weather was so awful that they couldn't yet get back to the mainland, I was forced to endure the company of my older brothers and their wives.

Endure is maybe the wrong word. I love my brothers and for the most part, love their wives as well. We had a great Christmas, the best in years as constant laughter filled my flat. Now though, I was ready for them to leave. Carlisle and Esme had at least retreated down to Esme's annex on the ground floor, but having the other four bodies around was becoming tiring. If nothing else, I couldn't wait to have the freedom to walk around naked again. And watch whatever _I_ wanted to watch on the telly.

Pulling my wellington boots from my feet, I placed them on their shelf then pulled off the fleece and one of the two sweaters, hanging them neatly up on the coat hooks. I'd no need to hear Alice shouting at me about messy people and messy minds. I opened the heavy door to the flat allowing the smell of fresh coffee to draw me towards laughter in the kitchen.

When I'm on my own I only drink instant coffee, the thicker the better. Four or five rounded teaspoonfuls of freeze-dried granules and boiling water make very strong black coffee. Bliss. Alice insisted we have filter coffee though. She bought me a huge coffee machine which only got used when she was here, which was not all that often.

As I entered my pale blue kitchen, I was faced with four cheery faces smiling up at me from the huge, round, wooden table. I greeted them by way of grunting in their general direction and poured myself a large mug of nectar. It burned my tongue and throat as I chugged it down, but it was what I needed. Holding the coffee, I looked out the window behind the dogs' beds, which were all nestled in a corner turret, and watched the snow falling, mesmerized for a moment by the white flakes as they passed the glass.

"Edward," Alice sang in her best, irritating, 'I'm going to bug the hell out of you' voice. "Edwarrdddd."

"What, small irritating person?" I snapped back more roughly than I'd meant to. Her face fell and her husband shot me evil looks, putting his arm around her shoulder protectively.

"Oh, Alice," I said more gently, trying to make amends without actually saying the word 'sorry'. "Lot on my mind." Both my brothers looked at me questioningly. They'd know if the bank foreclosed, so I might as well tell them now.

"I've got to call Jake," I confessed, sitting on the window seat overlooking the formal gardens while picking up the handset of the phone with one hand and running the other repeatedly through my hair. "It appears that the bank wants their money back, and this time they're not really playing ball with me about it".

Jasper looked me directly in the eyes, "But I thought you'd paid the loan off. You sold two fields and one of the businesses..." he trailed off, looking past my head and out towards the falling snow.

I shook my head. "I paid half of it back. And usually they let me extend. It seems this time's different. Anyway, I'm going to call Jake now to see what he says. He won't commit to anything by email." The girls looked at each other before simultaneously getting up and leaving the room, my brothers remaining to watch over me as I made the call.

The phone call didn't really achieve anything. My only directive was to go to the bank on the first day the ferries were running again, which would happen as soon as the weather improved. Jake remained calm and unaffected as I ranted and raved throughout our telephone conversation.

"Edward, this can't go on. If we don't sort something out soon, if you don't comply with the terms of the loan, or manage to negotiate something new, and soon, then the bank will take Glen Glas. I can't deal with you any more on this. Mr. MacLennan has taken your accounts away from me. I'm sorry, mate."

Fuck.

After one disastrous meeting with Mr. MacLennan a week later, followed by four further weeks of negotiating, I received another letter from the bank.

_The Bank of The Highlands  
Loch Ness Way  
Inverness  
IV1 1OO_

_February 10th 2009_

_E A Cullen  
Glen Glas  
Isle Of Gallan PA101_

_Dear Mr. Cullen,_

_Given recent discussions with both the Oban Branch Manager and the Loan Director at our Head Office in Inverness, I'm writing to confirm that we are willing to offer you the services of I. Swan to assist you with your business needs._

_Should this solution fail, or should you fail to make use of I. Swan, the bank will have no further option but to foreclose._

_I. Swan will arrive in Gallan on 8th March. Further details will follow shortly._

_Yours sincerely_

_A. Volterra  
Director  
Bank of The Highlands_

**March 2009**

I walked slowly towards the area on the landing point where foot passengers disembark from The Isle of Gallan ferry, watching the boat's crew tie up the lines, with ropes as wide as myself, attempting to secure the vessel to the pier's side. The heavens had opened and rain was pelting down in hard globe like bullets from the gunshot grey sky. I pulled my tweed cap further forward over my eyes and hunched my shoulders, in an attempt to keep the rain from running down my back. My calf-length brown wax-coat was usually impenetrable, but today's perpendicular deluge meant that heavy drops were getting past the large collar and down onto the skin of my back.

I had a love- hate relationship with the island of my home. Some days I almost adored it, I felt poetic with regards to the hills, and mountains that you couldn't escape no matter where you were on the island. I craved the sea coasts and the lochs that lapped around the green landscape. Other days I resented the fact I _had _to be there along with the hard work that went into _everything_ associated with Glen Glas, the fact that I had to deal, on a daily basis, with highland cattle and sheep and the damn wild deer which ate anything they could get their mouths around. Mostly though, I detested the generally appalling weather.

I was born in London. That's what we did, our family's type. Families who lived in huge houses in Southern England birthed their babies in London, the best of the best delivering them as cost was no object. From our very beginnings we would want for nothing. My parents moved to the family pied a terre in London a month before the designated due date and when as the first contraction nagged at her womb, Esme, my beloved mother, was whisked into the Portland Hospital for a pain-free, fast and uncomplicated delivery. Three times.

I was born last, the youngest son of Esme and her husband, Ted Cullen. Dark haired thug-like Emmett was the oldest, and eighteen months after him, golden haired, angel-faced Jasper appeared. Four years after Jasper, and as far as I understand, in a not entirely planned appearance, I emerged. Red, angry, kicking and screaming. The midwife informed my mother that I wasn't scared, I wasn't sad, I was angry at being taken from the warm place in which I was comfortable. My Mother told me that when they cleaned me up, removing the white crap that covers new born babies, my eyes where unnaturally green and my hair was already bronze and utterly unruly. Of course, Mothers always say things like this to make _their_ children stand out. I'm pretty sure that my eyes were blue as all new born babies eyes are, and that my hair was non-descript and stuck to my face with the gunky fluid that had protected me for nine months.

I was evidently even more unruly than my hair's mythical behavior. With my mother's final hope of a daughter dashed, I was spoilt beyond belief, the perpetrator of most of the sibling fights in our nursery, and the child who cried the loudest and got the most sympathy. Emmett and Jasper would try to ignore me as I was so much younger, but I would not put up with that. I wanted equal shares, and they would put their feet down each time I destroyed their Lego structures or their car races or their Action Men battles.

My parents sent us to the local nursery school to attempt to make us look 'normal', and gave us a view of what 'normal' children did and didn't have. We were then sent the local primary school, and in the evenings, had to sit with a tutor to prepare us for exams that would take us to prep school and then onto the classic English boarding schools Eton or Harrow, or perhaps onto Fettes, the Scottish equivalent in Edinburgh.

When Emmett was nine and a half and I was four, contrary to the careful planning of my parents, my paternal grandfather went against their wishes and died of an instant and huge heart attack. Years of high living and low company finally caught up with him; one minute he was in the local inn quaffing their most expensive whisky, the next he was offering Saint Peter a snifter.

Within days we had moved to the Island of Gallan, off the West Coast of Scotland. Ted had evidently always known this would happen. He was the only son, indeed the only child, of the Laird of Glen Glas. The house in Surrey was just a pre-cursor for what was to come. Emmett, at nearly ten years of age became the next in line, the house in Surrey became his and he became the Laird in waiting, the next in line for Glen Glas. The flat in Central London was then Jasper's for all intents and purposes.

I got a title. That was it. A title with which I could do nothing. Oh, and my grandfather's stamp and coin collections.

Whoopie-doo.

Having spent most of my formative years on Gallan, you would have thought that I'd have been used to the fact all four seasons could pay a visit Glen Glas in one day, but as I had moved away as soon as I could, firstly to Fettes boarding school in Edinburgh when I was eleven, the sudden changes still didn't agree with me, or I with them. Then, having done better than my parents had expected, I moved onto Edinburgh University for four years with a year in the middle at Harvard. Then finally at twenty-four, having finished my Law Degree, I received my articles and instead of practicing, I went from one type of institution to another when I decided to go into the army. Easy choices. Choices made by my heritage. Emmett was working in the city of London, already the director of a large financial and management consultancy, and Jasper was a doctor having finished the relevant medical royal college exams for his chosen specialty, neurology. Emmett should have been the one here, the one dealing with the financial robot sent by the lawyers and the bank. But he hated living on Gallan more than I, and when my father became extremely sick three years ago and attempted to hand the reigns over to Emmett, he refused them. Point blank. Said he'd return for Christmas and New Year, for a couple of weeks in the Summer, and for the annual House verses Workers rugby match at Easter. Apart from that, he wasn't interested in Glen Glas or in Gallan. His wife Rose, who was some sort of hot shot accountant, hated Gallan too. In addition to the weather and the need for wellington boots, she made clear her opinion of the occasional lack of hot water in the house. Jasper wasn't even an option, his education was too important to him to interrupt, and as far as he was concerned he was never in line to take over anyway, he wasn't giving his life up for the family name.

So after countless telephone calls and emails from both of my older brothers and my cousin Tanya, the nearest thing to a sister I had, followed by two hour long conversations filled with racking tears from my mother, I came out of the army at the next possible opportunity. After two terms in Iraq and one in Afghanistan frying my brain somewhat, I was most recently based at Edinburgh Castle and was enjoying the almost leisurely role of castle commander.

At first I wondered if it would be a quiet relief to live amongst the purple mountains and turquoise waters. My father told me that I wouldn't manage it, that I would run the house into the ground. I told him to fuck off and let me run it my own way. Managing the house and the farm was well within the scope of my capabilities. I'd grown up there for fucks sake. He had opened the house to the public about five years previously, using the American obsession for the 'auld country' as a point of interest. We'd had a furious row and I stormed out, heading down to the Inn at the ferry port, drinking myself into bed with Jessica, the pub manager's daughter with whom I'd been at primary school. Ignoring the ringing of my mobile phone, I stayed the night, banging the hell out of her three times, before sneaking out as she still slept.

As I walked up the forest trail back to the house, I picked up my phone messages, all from Emmett, telling me that my father, the amazing Ted Cullen, had died of a massive heart attack at the age of fifty three. It wasn't related to his cancer. It was unexpected, it was fast, and it was fatal.

I hadn't said sorry. He hadn't said sorry. And now we never could.

If the army and going away to war hadn't destroyed the entirety of my soul, then my father's sudden death destroyed any semblance of humanity that remained. I locked myself up in the house, making it my life, determined to prove my late father wrong. My mother eventually moved to the annex on the ground floor. I took over the top floor, and the bottom two floors were open to the public every day from Easter through the Harvest Festival. But I hadn't been born into this and was neither an estate manager nor a farmer; I was a solider and a lawyer. I was a town boy at heart, but even so, I started off thinking there would be nothing to it, that running the house, gardens, farm and estate would be a piece of cake.

I think I was wrong. Not that I'll ever admit to that out loud, but I think I was bloody well wrong.

My mother didn't live alone in the annex. Ted's cousin, Carlisle, a family doctor, came to Ted's funeral and for all intents and purposes never left. He had been the first Cullen in her life, the one who introduced her to Ted. She had fallen for Ted's wild and exciting ways, and Carlisle stepped back from the woman he described much later to me, as his one and only love.

When the old Doctor who ran the sole practice on the island died about six weeks after Ted, Carlisle bought the practice and modernized it. For about eighteen months he lived in a tiny house attached to the practice, and was a regular visitor to Glen Glas. Then, about a year ago, he stayed in the annex one night and never really went home again. Esme seemed happier than she'd been for years, and once Emmett, Jasper and I all got over the shock that our mother was in fact, 'an attractive woman with needs', a term to which we all shuddered when she shouted it at us, we welcomed Carlisle into our branch of the family. They didn't marry. They just shared a cozy space.

Yeah right.

A crack of thunder overhead brought me back to the present.

I had fucked up, and the bank would no longer allow me to run the house on my own. People were pouring off the ferry, jostling for position underneath the shallow rain shelter that ran down towards the car park. Most were either with tourist parties heading towards their coaches which would take them to chain hotels in the biggest town on Gallen or pilgrims off to the tiny island of Cainneach, that housed a non- denominational spiritual community and retreat whose residents dressed in tie dyed shirts and large bulky sweaters pushed under thin kagool water proof jackets. The rest were locals returning home from a hard day's work or from Oban where they'd done the bulk of their weekly and/or monthly shopping. I watched the car ramp as a lorry from a mainland brewery came off, delivering beer to my Inn and others on the Island. A few people greeted me as they walked past, most though just wanted to get to their destinations, away from the rain and growing wind. I watched every face coming off the boat, looking for _I. Swan_.

How the fuck I was expected to recognize my bank contact as they disembarked was a mystery to me; the fact that I didn't know whether it was a man or a woman didn't help.

Then I saw her. Her.

Her.

Shuffling down the walkway, dragging a large case on wheels, with a laptop case over one shoulder and a handbag slung over that, carry-all bag in the other hand, was the person who just had to be from the bank. She was unsuitably dressed for the weather, no raincoat, no hat, no umbrella, just a navy blue trouser suit, brown hair piled up and black framed glasses sliding off her nose.

She stumbled slightly as the heel of her out of place high heeled shoes became wedged into a rut in the ramp. She righted herself quickly, looking around to see if anyone had noticed. Our eyes met and she scowled, stopping her walk at the bottom of the rickety ramp. As she carefully placed her bags down, she looked up at me, her face solemn. She held out one hand.

"Mr. Cullen, I presume," she said, her quiet voice accented with an unexpected American twang. I took her hand and shook it. "Isabella Swan, Bank of the Highlands." She was incredibly business like, no messing around.

"Nice to meet you," I responded, my tone insinuating that I really wasn't pleased to meet her at all, "follow me, the car's this way." I made a move to take her bags, but she grabbed them before I was able.

"I can manage," she muttered, stomping off. Her shoes slipped a little in the puddles that now lined the pier, her suit getting wetter and wetter, trousers sticking to her legs and hair coming away from its mangled prison on her head.

I caught up with her in a few steps and noticed how little she was in comparison to me, maybe ten inches shorter than my six foot two height with only her stupid shoes making her seem taller than she really was. I walked ahead slightly and led the way to my jeep, which was parked next to the pub. I took her bags, slinging them into the back, and then attempted to help her into the passenger seat.

My jeep is old. And dirty. The dogs are in and out of it all the time, as are my wellies, farming equipment, and anything else that needs carting around. Miss Swan curled her nose up slightly at the smells of soil and animals which permeated the seats. I held her elbow as she clambered in, trying to steady her. Of course, luck wasn't on either of our sides, and her thin pointy heel slid on a sliver of mud as she stepped up onto the edge of the door frame. She fell forward and her legs slid back. Only my close proximity kept her knees from slamming down onto the concrete of the parking area. Ascertaining immediately that she was okay I asked, "You okay, Miss Swan?" My voice came out more harshly than I'd meant. She turned around, glaring at me.

"I'm. Fine. Oh, and its _Ms._ Swan. I can assure you Mr. Cullen, as much as it annoys you to have me here, I'm looking forward to my time here even less. But, sadly for both of us, you are apparently incompetent and in need of help before the bank forecloses. You are stuck with me, and hideously for me, I am stuck with you. Can you please take me to where I'm staying so I can unpack and get prepared? We start work first thing tomorrow morning."

She managed to get into her seat without further mishap, and pulled the tatty seat belt around her small self. She pushed her glasses up from the tip of her nose, and stared ahead, her eyes slightly glazed. The rain was so hard she wouldn't be able to see out of the front windscreen anyway. And fuck it. She was annoying. Really. Fucking. Annoying.

I ran around and climbed into the driver's seat ignoring the seatbelt, quickly started the engine, slammed the jeep into gear and headed up the private forest road back to the house. Wolfstone blared from the knackered old stereo. The windscreen wipers worked sporadically and I drove blind for most of the ten minute trip.

As we went over a rough bump, I noticed that her face was white, but not as white as her knuckles, her hands gripping the seat as tightly as possible.

I thought for a moment about telling her that I'd driven this unmade road without lights, without breaks, and more than once, less than sober. But the fear in her eyes was something to be seen, and the perverse side of me wanted to scare the living shite out of her, in her fancy heels and expensive looking suit. Gallan and Glen Glas was ready for her, but the question remained, was she ready for us?

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**Thank you for reading, please review if you haven't done already!**


	3. Chapter 2

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my eternally patient betas. Here's the rejig of Chapter Two. Others are on their way. Still slowly. Sorry 'bout that.**

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the places. Official disclaimer is own my profile page and on my website (link is on the profile page)**

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We rounded the last bend of the forest road, faster than perhaps was kind to both my battered old jeep and to Ms. Swan. The house looked spectacular in the distance. Every electric light was on, welcoming our uninvited, yet expected guest. She scowled as we approached Glen Glas, her eyes squinting through the rain coated windows, as the wipers had now given up completely. Her knuckles appeared almost blue they were so white, as she grasped at her seat, silently looking for security and instead, garnering bits of crumbling leather seat stuffing between her fingers.

I sped around the outside of the grounds, going from the rough pebbled unmade road, which didn't look like it should be driven on, through into the visitors car park. Turning onto the tarmac that lead past the little wooden gift shop, I passed through the large, ornate metal gates, and pulled up with a screech outside the main door. Usually, we used the back door behind Esme's annex. Today, as _Ms._ I. Swan was staying with us for the foreseeable future, and Esme thinks first impressions were lasting, we were using the front door, usually reserved for tourists and the big parties we hosted a couple of times a year.

Carlisle and Esme were waiting just inside the huge, wooden, double front doors with the rain coming down at such an angle that it was splattering at their feet, bouncing up off the red, ceramic floor tiles. I pulled up as closely as possible to the doorstop, avoiding two of my five dogs who were skittering around the wheels of the jeep, desperate to greet me. I jumped out of the almost dry interior of the jeep and ran around to Ms. Swan's side, skidding on the soaking small stones of the driveway and only managed to stay off my arse by grabbing Ms. Swan's door handle. As I opened the door for her, she looked at me with obvious distain, her dark hair sticking to her face where it had escaped its bun thing, her glasses sliding down her nose again. I held my hand out to help her down from the jeep, and she took it grudgingly, her lip tightly curled as the rain pounded onto the side of her face, punishing her for each step out and away from the jeep.

Her hand was warm. And tiny. And soft.

I shook my head, attempting to ignore the soft, supple skin of her hand, and let her go the second she was safely on the pebbles as the dogs rushed over to both of us. Esme hurried down the five large stone steps to greet us, protected under a Glen Glas umbrella.

"Oh," she gasped. "You poor darling, you're soaked." She held the umbrella over Ms. Swan, gently removing the two large cross breed dogs, Spike and Trevor, with her foot to stop them from jumping up at Ms. Swan. "Edward," she snapped at me. "Grab the young lady's bags. I've put her in the green garden view room."

"Mum. This is _Ms._ I. Swan. _Ms._ Swan, my mother, Esme Cullen," I said with obviously sarcastic politeness while the two shook hands, and watched as Ms. Swan followed my mother into the house. I kept watching as Esme introduced Carlisle. Ms. Swan's eyes crinkled slightly as she smiled up at him, her face streaked with eye makeup, making her look like a child who'd been playing with black face paints. My mother lowered the umbrella, shaking rainwater loose outside the front door, while speaking quickly to Ms. Swan; then lead her up the stairs to the main body of the house, Carlisle following behind, laughing at something Ms. Swan had said.

I hadn't realized I was soaked from standing in the walloping rain, watching the tiny woman, who was going to make or break me, cozying up with my mother and her, err, friend. I muttered complaints to myself as I grabbed her bags from the boot of the jeep, and shutting the door with my foot, followed them into the house, trying to avoid the vast puddles the dogs had created on the now very slippery floor.

I pushed the front doors shut, one after the other, using my arse as my hands were still clutching Ms Swan's bags, and headed into the reception area. The house was divided into distinct areas downstairs, like any house. The only difference was that this house was huge. My student flat could have fit into the dining room, with space to spare. The lobby area was tiled with red stone and the off white walls carried stags antlers, with plaques underneath denoting who shot the animal, when and whereabouts. Up four wooden stairs there was another heavy door, which theoretically kept the heat in and the cold out. Through that door every room had wooden floors, and each room its own large Persian rug; tatty, old, and in some places threadbare Persian rugs, but Persian rugs none the less. There was a library, a music room, a sitting room, a retiring room, a dining room and another sitting area. Each room had a large fireplace, about five feet high and five feet wide. The walls themselves were papered in deep reds, fading in some places. Long, thick, velvety red curtains hung at each window. Ancient furniture littered the rooms.

The music room and library were my favorites, and often late at night when the house was shut off to the public and the dogs and I were tired but unable to sleep, I'd leave my upstairs flat and venture down to play the grand piano. Really play. Playing the piano in a room only lit by the fireplace and stars in the sky really made for atmospheric composing and playing.

I bypassed these rooms, heading straight up the grand staircase to the flat. The walls of the magnificent and, as Rose referred to it, sweeping stair case are lined with portraits of the family. Real, huge, embarrassing, hand painted proper pictures of each of us, going back for about five generations.

I hurried to the top of the red carpeted stairs and into the flat through one of the two heavy doors which were kept locked during the day when the tourists were nosing about. I barged through the right hand door with my soaking shoulder, passing through my rooms quickly, and along to the bits of the flat that I, when forced, consented to share with other people.

As I flung Ms. Swan's bags on the small bed in the green turret room, which would be hers for the least possible amount of time I could manage, I heard voices coming from the kitchen. Esme was laughing as Ms. Swan talked, and had a little laugh of her own.

I went over to the coat- pegs at the top of the other set of stairs, peeling off my raincoat and heavy boots, leaving them haphazardly underneath the hooks, and headed back to the kitchen. No Alice to tell me otherwise.

My mother had poured both herself and Ms. Swan a substantial amount of whiskey, which sat on the tabletop beside large mugs of what smelled like real coffee. Esme stood at the woodblock kitchen work-surface, making some form of white meat sandwich with the fresh white crusty bread I'd bought earlier in the day from the local bakery.

I smiled at my mother. "Is that for me, Mum?" I asked. "I'm bloody starving."

"No, it's not," she snapped back. "It's for Bella here. She's tired and hungry. It's a damn long way from Inverness, and she's not eaten since this morning."

I shrugged my shoulders, indicating my lack of care at (a) the distance she'd had to travel, and (b) the fact that my mother was feeding her my supper. As my mother placed Ms. Swan's supper on a blue plate from the cupboard, I cut doorsteps of bread for myself, smearing butter on both, yellow mustard on one, slapping some cold beef from the fridge on the other, smashed them together and then rammed the sandwich into my mouth. I joined them at the table, sitting across from both women. My mother scowled at me, and Ms. Swan turned her eyes to the table, a slight smile touching her lips.

"For God's sake, Edward, _please_ show some manners. You may be a grown up, but you're behaving like a child, spitting your supper out over the table, cramming in as much as you can chew," Esme scolded, her brow furrowed and her eyes, wait, was that anger in her eyes?

Ms. Swan coughed, her eyes smiling, her mouth trembling as she tried not to openly and outwardly guffaw at my telling off.

I gave her my best filthy look, swung myself off the chair, grabbed a cleanish plate from the draining board next to the huge ceramic sink, and stomped away to my study. They could both just fuck off. Bloody women! Don't care if one was my mother and the other here to save my livelihood. Fucking hell.

_I could hear the bullets whizzing over my head, almighty deafening bangs nearer than where I'd like them to be, screams of women, children, men, goats, chickens._

_The sand and fine particles of rubble whipped around my face. I shouted something at my guys, something even I couldn't hear or understand, and motioned for them to follow me, scrabbling across the remains of the school we were supposed to be protecting. I pulled myself along sliding on my belly and elbows, my gun aloft in both hands, pieces of debris poking into me as I wriggled less quickly than I would have liked along piles of uneven wreckage._

_I could hear nothing, or more accurately I could hear silent noise. Constant, intense, extreme clammer. The sun burnt down onto my face, onto the faces of my men. I was already so brown, Emmett was sure to make totally unsuitable comments when this term was over._

_My vision was impaired from the angle the sun's rays where hitting my protective goggles. Now I was blind, deaf and mute; my thick army issue gloves meant that touch was pretty much out too. I could feel my gun though; I could fire my rifle though my fingers were thickly covered. Accurately._

_My nostrils were the only part of my body totally uncovered, and I could smell my environment. Ammo fumes were engulfing my head, my senses dulled by the perfume of gunpowder, the stench of red-hot metal, the odor of burning belongings; worst of all though, was the bitter stench of burning flesh._

_I started to panic._

_Edward Cullen doesn't panic._

_The lack of noise was getting closer, the sun brighter, and the smells stronger._

_I yelled at my men to get back, screaming at them to retreat, back to what was left of the classroom where we'd been having our lunch seven minutes previously; we would be safer there. Well, not completely safer, but relatively safer. Better than being out here in the open with no chance of survival._

_I looked over my shoulder. They were moving, seven figures running, crouched down. Not nine. Seven._

_I turned tail screaming in anger and fired randomly around me in every direction except that of my men, bawling obscenities in abject terror as I retreated toward the general direction in which we'd started, pulling on kit in shocked dread as the room fell to pieces around us. From the corner of my eye I spotted the remains, a gold Beckham football booted foot. Aheem's foot, the fifteen year old boy we'd played football with before lunch, before the bomb went off. He'd waved at us, walked away, and pulled a cord in his rucksack. He'd bombed the living hell out of us._

_I screamed again, my throat aching from the effort. Sweat poured down over my eyes getting stuck behind my glasses in pools, then hit and stung my scorched cheeks. As I raced to join Tyler and Phil, my heart felt as though it would burst from my constricting chest, through my skin, my jacket, my vest._

_I was scared. I was absolutely fucking petrified._

_I yelled again, almost there, my feet tripping, my heart pounding, the sun thumping, the noise roaring, the sweat surging and—_

I woke sitting bolt upright. The sheets were soaked, Pajamas glued to me like a second, very wet skin.

There was still so much noise. I could hear the rain battering angrily against the window, the curtains still drawn and blinds open. Moonlight filled the room, creating eerie shadows which danced against the walls. I realized that I was still screaming and became silent only when I caught sight of an unfamiliar figure just inside my bedroom door; a petrified face stared at me in utter horror.

"Um. S-s-sorry," a gentle American voice stuttered. "I heard the screaming and wanted to make sure you were okay. You are okay, aren't you?"

The moonlight lit her up like a living ghost, her face white and pure, her hands almost translucent. She had a blanket wrapped around her which I half recognized as one my maternal grandmother had quilted for me when I was younger, a blue and green flowery patchwork. So macho. It was draped over her delicate shoulders, her brown hair everywhere, as if she'd been stuck in a windstorm. A white nightie sort of thing was covering her up, neck to floor, neck to shoulder to wrist. She was chewing her lip, her looked eyes worried, but also a little confused and if I wasn't mistaken, perhaps a tad irritated.

"A nightmare. Nothing. Go back to bed," I snapped. I pulled the sheets up over me. Fuck, they were twisted up between my legs. I must have been thrashing around this time as well as screaming. Bloody great.

Her attitude returned, as she spun on her heal, stomping out of my room and slamming the door behind her. She muttered something about ungrateful entitled bastards as she left. What the fuck? I reached over and turned on the bedside light, lying back against the pillows that I used to make a small nest each night. Taking a deep breath in and then letting it slowly out, I tried to steady my heart beat.

I hated that nightmare. I knew how it ended. But it was over. I was fine. The guys were mostly fine.

I closed my eyes, reaching out blindly to switch the light off, praying the rest of the night would be less troubled.

I was rewarded with a bizarre dream about scared flashing chocolate brown eyes framed with long, thick, black lashes, flushed skin and extremely angry and ugly words.

I woke feeling completely exhausted at six o'clock with Spike jumping up and down on my bed, telling me in no uncertain terms that if I didn't take him down the back steps and out into my little private garden, which was about the size of three parking spaces, that he would pee on my bed, or rug. Again.

The sun hadn't risen yet but the rain had stopped which would make for a slightly easier day. I had to take Ms. Swan around the farm, outlying fields, and the various properties at some point today, and it would be a slightly less depressing experience for both of us, well for me anyway, if it was dry. Everything would look bountiful and beautiful as it was freshly watered. I hoped that the single track roads by the top fields weren't a mush of mud and stone, as that made for slightly unpleasant driving if you weren't used to it. And judging by Ms Swan's appearance yesterday from the boat, although she was working for a Highlands bank and therefore by a process of elimination probably lived in the Highlands of Scotland, she was obviously unaware of the severity of the Highland weather. As I found a suitable fleece to put on over my red plaid faded pajama pants and white tee shirt, I shoved my feet into the first pair of shoes I could find, black leather tasseled loafers that I usually wore with my kilt. I ran my hands through my hair, the most attention it would receive today, and went for a pee before descending the stairs with the pack of canine waifs and strays bouncing around me, desperate to get out and relieve themselves over what was left of my small lawn area. Their pee had burnt the grass beyond repair in most places, and even when the lawn in this bit of the garden was fully soaked with rainwater, it was never more than yellow.

It was fucking cold. It was fucking cold at this time most mornings, even in high summer. I shuddered, and decided to leave the pups to it before my dick disappeared up inside my body forever. I headed up the steep stairs, thinking of nothing apart from the steaming hot, thick, caffeine packed, pint mug of coffee I could have in less than one minute if I cheated, making cold instant and nuking it in the microwave.

I burst through the door to the flat, almost salivating at the thought of coffee, and bounded into the kitchen with Spike and Trevor at my heels and the other dogs not far behind them, each desperate for their breakfast. Dogs have an easy life. Sleep, pee, crap, eat, crap, sleep, pee, eat, crap, sleep, pee, sleep. Repeat ad naseum and infinitum. I'd like a life like that, perhaps a little less crapping, a little more time in the pub, and a decent shag; but that would suit me just fine.

I piled the granules of coffee into my huge mug, filled it with tap water, and put it in the microwave, pressing the relevant buttons. While the turntable spun some heat into my liquid breakfast, I gathered the dogs bowls up from where they'd been left last night, and filled them with dried food, attempting as ever, and failing as ever, to put all the bowls down simultaneously. Three down, and all five dogs went for it, and each other. Not that I had ever failed to feed them, but each morning and evening they fought tooth and nail to get to the first three bowls. If I wasn't here, Esme, along with Carlisle I assumed, would stay up here and keep an eye on the dogs, making sure that they were walked and fed. Moving the two outside dogs away from the maelstrom with one foot, and yelling at them all to shut up because their food was coming, I was aware of a cough and a laugh.

Ms. Swan.

Urgh. I'd forgotten about her.

Fuck.

I looked up at her and shrugged my shoulders as I put the final two bowls down, moving my hands quickly away before they became part of Fi and Sula's breakfast.

She laughed, at me I think, and moved to take the kettle and fill it with water.

"Good morning," she smiled. "Coffee smells good." She looked around, suddenly appearing slightly confused.

"No machine? I thought, last night…"

"Nuked granules," I growled, interrupting her. I was irritated again as I'd wanted to be ahead of the game, dressed and in my office by the time she came down at nine am, as we'd agreed before bed last night.

"Tea?" she queried.

"Cupboard above kettle," I barked. I rescued my coffee from the microwave and took a slurp, liquid joy, and turned around leaning against the work surface. As she moved around the kitchen, finding the things she needed, I couldn't help but watch. She didn't ask for information and I didn't volunteer any. She seemed to find what she wanted without any problem, and that was fine by me. Mind you, the kitchen was pretty empty. I ate at the inn most nights or with Esme if she asked. Lunch was always on the hop or from the cafe attached to the house during tourist season. She bent over to get the milk from the half height fridge, and I couldn't help but notice how long her legs were, such long legs for such a tiny girl. What the fuck? Snap out of it Cullen. Idiot. So she was kind of attractive, if you liked mousy accountant types. She was going to regret dressing in a bloody skirt and jacket suit effort with high heels. I wondered if she even owned wellies. Perhaps Alice's would fit her, they were pink and tiny as was Ms. Swan, and generally girls seemed to like pink, so that should be okay.

I was musing pink wellies and tight navy blue skirts when I heard a guttural coughing noise, bringing me crashing out of my boot contemplations.

"Is there something wrong Mr. Cullen?" she asked, rubbing her hands down her legs removing some lint or something that she thought I could see there.

"N-n-no," I stammered at her, feeling suddenly very conspicuous in my pajama bottoms, fleece and stupid bloody tasseled loafers. I ran my free hand through my hair and took another slurp of piping hot coffee, unsure what to say. Her hair was piled up again, not scruffy like when we met at the boat, and not all over the place like last night.

Oh shit, last night.

Pull yourself together Cullen. Address this head on.

"Sorry if I woke you," I started, wondering where I was going to go with this. Not with 'I've seen things so awful you couldn't even imagine, and last night I was reliving some of it'.

She interrupted, shuffling slightly. "That's okay. I heard screaming and ran towards the noise. I didn't really think until I got to your room." She paused, looking unsure again. "Err, sorry for intruding on your sleep."

"Doesn't happen often. Anyway," I pushed myself away from the counter and headed towards the kitchen door, as she bent down to pet Fi. "We're earlier than planned. Shall we meet in fifteen minutes back here and I'll show you the house and office? We need to get started so you can go away." I didn't mean to sound gruff, or stupid, or indeed ungrateful, but I was aware that I did.

Standing up and leaving Fi who wandered off sniffing the floor as she went looking for tidbits on the linoleum left over from last night's sandwich frenzy, Ms Swan put her hands on her hips, as her eyes hardened.

"As I stated last night when I arrived, Mr. Cullen, I don't want to be here. You, I know, do not want me here. Sadly, we both have jobs to do. I am good at mine. You are not good at yours. If you were, you wouldn't need me here. Let's get this started so we can finish it as quickly as possible."

She swished past me towards her room, the smell of roses taking over my senses as she walked by, stopping just inches away from me. "Fifteen minutes. Be ready. Sooner I'm done, sooner I can leave this God forsaken place."

"I don't fucking need you," I muttered quietly as I watched her walk away, her little arse swaying ever so slightly.

She swiveled back around, hands back on her hips. "Yes. You fucking do!"

She turned again into her room, head held high with her shoes making clicking noises as she reached her wooden floor. Then after a shuffling noise and an unintelligible mutter, the door slammed shut.

Great Cullen, really fucking great.

Fifteen minutes later we were both down in my office. I hadn't thought to put the fire on before she arrived, and so she was shivering slightly as I made pathetic excuses while shoving logs and paper into the fireplace, hoping to get the room warmed up quickly. The last thing I needed was for her to get a cold or chill, and have her stay at Glen Glas prolonged.

"Perhaps you should go back upstairs until the room's heated up," I suggested trying to be nice, although more for my own benefit that hers.

She shook her head and sat down at the desk opposite mine which served as storage for excess paper, bank statements, paying in books, and old coffee cups. She cleared a little space with one hand, pushing papers out her way, and reached into her case to retrieve a shiny black laptop and its power cable.

"I said before, Mr. Cullen," looking up at me as she opened the laptop up, "Sooner we start, sooner we finish. Let's get going." She paused momentarily. "I'm from the Pacific Northwest of America and I live in Inverness. Those two things qualify me for being immune to the cold." She paused again and looked at her screen, pushing her glasses up her nose toward her angry and yet sparkly eyes.

Wait. What the fuck? Sparkly Eyes? Get a grip, Cullen. Penis? When did you think that being half erect was a good idea? Fucking stop twitching like that.

A choked coughing noise sounding like a guttural version of "Ahem" shook me out of my internal self-berating. I focused on her whole face, not just her eyes.

"I said, Mr. Cullen, that I need your wireless password. Now would be good."

"Fionasulaalicerose" I spat at her. "It's the small irritating things in my life my family has imposed on me".

She rolled her eyes at the same time I did.

_Perhaps I should add Isabella to it,_ I mused to myself.

"Mr. Cullen. Please." She snapped at me.

Oh fuck. No internal filter. Bollocks. I said that out loud.

"Oh Fuck. No internal filter. Bollocks".

Oh crap. Had she heard my conversation with my dick? No. She hadn't slapped me. Oh Christ, had she heard that? I slapped my hand over my mouth. She looked at me as if she were suppressing a smile, and then asked for the first of many files and pieces of paper she needed to look at in order to get a handle on the state of the estate.

By noon, she was surrounded by piles and piles of files. There was silence in the room apart from the occasional question and the crackling of the fire. The rain started up again, and had a mesmerizing effect as it crashed against the glass of the windows. The sun was shining on the other side of the Loch, and behind the mountains to the south I could see a rainbow forming in an almost picture perfect arch.

I looked up at the clock above the office door, and thought to send Jake a quick email. He'd still be in the office, so I'd catch him before he left for the day given he only worked a half day on Saturdays. Maybe I could get him and Leah to come across and rescue me for the day tomorrow on the pretense of business concerning selling one of the top fields.

_To: Jacob Black (Work)_

_From: Edward Cullen_

_14th March 2009 11:53am_

_Jake,_

_The monster from Loch Ness has arrived and is currently swimming amongst my paperwork. It's kind of appealing looking, but the long legs and fabulous arse are there merely to conceal the beast that is surely hiding underneath._

_You and Leah fancy rescuing me tomorrow for the day? Dinner at the pub? My treat?_

_Edward_

I pressed send and waited impatiently for Jake to reply. Ms. Swan was typing away, chewing on her bottom lip as she concentrated. A minute or two passed before I picked up my phone to text Jake.

_Oy you sod. Have emailed you. Reply!_

Within about thirty seconds my emailed pinged, and I glanced at my inbox.

_To: Edward Cullen_

_From: Isabella Swan (Inverness)_

_CC: Jacob Black (Oban)_

_14th March 2009 11:56am_

_Mr. Cullen,_

_While I am working with you, all correspondence between you and our organization is being copied to me. This obviously includes all email._

_Please be aware of that from now on._

_I. Swan_

Fuck. Fuckedy fuck.

I looked up slowly, feeling my face burning with embarrassment, and also anger; anger at being caught, anger at being watched _so _closely. Anger at the thought that she now knew I was trying to avoid her. Anger at knowing that she now knew I thought both her legs and arse were kind of attractive.

"I think, Mr. Cullen," she said very slowly and very coldly, "That it's time for a lunch break. Your mother intimated yesterday that I would be welcome in her apartment for lunch. Could you tell me which door that is please?" She was chewing her lip again. I motioned towards the appropriate entrance on the opposing side of the hallway from the office door. She could easily enough follow the path the red glare from my cheeks was emitting.

As soon as she was gone, clicking away towards Esme's door, I picked up the phone and pressed number two on the speed dial. It was picked up after two rings.

"Glen Glas Inn. Mike Newton speaking."

"Mike. Hi, it's Edward. I'll be there in ten minutes. Put a pint on the bar and a steak pie in the oven. I need an escape. The guy from the bank is a girl, and she's driving me barking mad already".

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**Thank you very much for reading this story. Please review if you haven't done so already. Thank you to all those of you who have reviewed and to those who have PM'd me. I appreciate your time and words very much.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my eternally patient betas. Here's the rejig of Chapter Three. **

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the places. Official disclaimer is own my profile page and on my website (link is on the profile page)**

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It's been speculated on more than one occasion that I like the ladies, that perhaps I enjoyed playing the field. I hadn't been with as many women as it was rumored on the island, on Mull and in Oban, but I had probably been with more than my fair share.

One night at the pub, it had been suggested that I also liked the _laddies_, and as much as I don't care who other people poke, or indeed if they poke around with themselves, I can assure you that my personal appetite is for the ladies, _not_ the laddies. That night I tackled Emmett in front of everyone and had to be pulled off by Jasper and Carlisle, who would have been more effective if they hadn't had been laughing so hard at both my reaction and drunken punching techniques. My hands were more injured the next morning than Emmett's face and chest, and although I had managed to destroy a chair and a couple tables worth of beer glasses, the only real damage had been to my pride. I'd have thought that my army training would've helped me beat the living crap out of my brick wall of an oldest brother; evidently not. Evidently, I can't punch for shit when I'm drunk.

Since I was nine and she was eight, when her parents moved to the island to run the post office, tourist office and convenience store, Jessica Stanley had been a part of my life. She always tagged along behind whatever gang I roamed with. She was the only girl in her year in our tiny school, and as such she played with the girls a year above her, the kids in my class. We were like a pack of wild wolves that ran together, rode bikes together and climbed trees together. We learned to swim together in the pool in Oban, and we all tried our first (and last) cigarettes together in the hut behind her parent's business. Hers were the first girl parts I saw without the aide of a magazine, when she was thirteen and I was fourteen. Every day that summer, all of us went swimming at our small beach. As was usual for the summer holidays, my cousin Tanya stayed with us, and she and I would get up early to go swim, no matter how cold the water or how hard the rain fell. We talked about everything and were as close as cousins could be. Jess would join us every afternoon and we'd all swim together, sometimes with Mike, my brothers and a few others, sometimes just the three of us. We'd then go back to the house to see what Esme had prepared for us to eat, before riding the horses into the evening, or helping with the animals on the farm. Simple, idealistic, upper middle class fun.

We used the old boat house next to the loch as a place to change our clothes, and to keep the towels dry whilst we were splashing around. It was old and falling to pieces. The sea blue paint was peeling off the inner and outer walls, each storm making the corrugated roof more unstable and the huge stable-like doors less attached to their hinges. Normally, I never took any notice of the girls, we had all grown up together and as far as I was concerned, they were just girls. But one day, having gone for a piss behind a tree, I wandered into the boathouse about five minutes after Tanya and Jessica, and was met by the sight of Jessica with no clothes on. Not a stitch. Not a towel around her and no swim suit. Damn, not even a pair of socks on. This was the first time I was aware of her being a _girl_.

With boobs and hair and everything. Well, boobs and hair.

Having caught me gaping at her, she flicked her blond hair over one shoulder as her hand went up to her face, and she giggled. Tanya, who was thankfully covered so as to prevent me from having to gouge my eyes out with a blunt instrument, turned around and giggled too. I couldn't help stare at her, as she stood frozen and blushed a deep red. I felt my cock twitch and harden in my green speedos. I made some comment, an attempt at apologizing and retreated backwards out of the boathouse as quickly as I could, tripping over bits of old rope and boat. Hiding around the side of the boathouse, I heard her and Tanya in hysterics, laughing so hard.

"Oh, God. That was awful," choked Jess. "Edward Cullen saw me naked. Mind you, by the look on his face you'd think he'd never seen these things before."

Tanya was laughing so hard I thought she would throw up. "God's sake, Jess. He's at an all-boys school. He's probably seen pictures and stuff, but you and I are the only girls he knows. It's got to be his first time seeing real boobs. Mind you, yours are so wee that they probably don't count."

I heard a thud and an "ow" followed closely by more convulsive laughing, which disappeared into the distance as they ran awkwardly along the unmade path back towards the house. I was left on my own, breathing heavily, a little confused, and to my horror more than a lot turned on.

First real life girlie bits not out of a magazine sighted: Check.

First noticeable-during-the-day-and-noticed-by-others-hard-on: Check.

First wank in the woods: Check.

I remained embarrassed for the rest of that day, but Jess managed to be brazen about it, and soon enough we were all back to normal; just friends, growing up together. I went back to school, concentrating on my studies, on playing rugby, and only ever thought of her again in confusing and sheet-wrecking dreams.

Of course, it all changed when I hit eighteen and college. I'd gone from being geeky Edward with glasses and head stuck either in a book, on thoughts of the farm or in front of a piano, to Edward Cullen, bronzed hair sex God.

Or something.

For an utterly inexplicable reason, my inability to grin with both sides of my mouth at the same time was considered cute. My refusal to buy a comb or hair brush, relying on the use my fingers instead, was considered cute. My green eyes were evidently vibrant and dreamy, and my naturally skinny but toned body was allegedly buff. Who knew? I summarized that perhaps college girls were easily pleased by visuals, or perhaps standards were slipping and they were just a bit simple. After six one-night stands where I perfected the art of receiving blow jobs from drunken female students, it was time to return to Glen Glas for the Christmas holidays.

Jessica was waiting for me disembark The Isle of Gallen Ferry as she had done each and every time I came home from school. This time I'd noticed she'd grown up in the four months I'd been away. Her hair was more done; sort of wavy and around her shoulders and not just tied up behind her head. She wore make up. And she was wearing, as I had learnt in my first term at Edinburgh, what appeared to be a push up bra. The cumulative effect made my cock twitch.

That Christmas, I slept with Jessica Stanley in the old boat house by the loch. By then, it had no door and only half a roof.

When I say slept, I mean we had sex, at least for a bit as it didn't last more than about a minute and a half. Somehow in that short time she got a huge fuck-off splinter in her back, which after an abortive attempt by me to remove it, we ended up having to explain how she acquired the splinter to the doctor. Knowing exactly what we had been up to, he sat us down and gave us the safe sex talk. Apparently Jessica didn't needed that particular talk as I wasn't Jessica's first partner; that pleasure had gone to Mike Newton two short weeks after I left for university. Now she seemed to think that I was a better bet and after our trist, she and I were fairly inseparable. Poor Mike, who had pined for her since he was about twelve, was gutted, though didn't show it outwardly. He was helping his father run the Inn, and told me that he was currently too busy for the lassies anyway.

Neither set of parents seemed to notice since we were always together anyway. Emmett, Jasper and Tanya all found the situation, for some reason, hysterically funny. Jessica confided in Tanya, who in turn 'confided' in Emmett and Jasper. Emmett and Jasper then 'confided' in the whole pub in one go. Tanya's guilty giggles could be heard from upstairs in the bed & breakfast bit of the Inn. I knew that because I was doing Jessica again at that moment, in very close proximity. This made three times in three days and this time I lasted three minutes. Yay for me! I patted myself on the back for my burgeoning sexual stamina.

Sadly when we attempted to sneak back down the stairs, adjusting our clothing, and probably looking more than a little flushed, everyone knew what we had been doing. Jess didn't seem fazed by the sneaky looks and muttered comments as she sat on my knee, taking sips from my pint of 80 Shilling beer, generally enjoying the attention. I'm fairly sure that my face turned the color of Santa's coat and I proceeded to get so drunk that I drove my jeep into the side of the pub's storage barn, were Mike & his father kept the used barrels before the brewery came to collect them.

Result of Edward's bad sex and drunken driving evening:

Damage to pub storage barn: £2746.43

Damage to Jeep: £52.99

Damage to EAC: Cut forehead (due to lack of seatbelt)

Damage to EAC Pride: Priceless.

Jasper and Emmett carried me home that night slung between them. They laughed all the way as we swayed our way along the forest walk back to Glen Glas with Tanya walking in front encouraging their taunts and jibes. Jasper stuck my head back together with butterfly stitches in the kitchen, whilst swigging away at a bottle of Grouse.

Tanya curled up with me that night on top of my huge bed, brushing hair out of my eyes, listening to my incoherent rants, holding a bucket so I could safely regurgitate my liquid dinner, and then hugging me gently until I passed out. When I woke six hours later, she was sleeping on the floor next to my bed. We were both still fully clothed. I had stiff shoulders, a sore skull and somehow a meager attempt at morning wood. She laughed at my unintentional erection, laughed at my stitches, and laughed at my hangover. She stopped laughing when I threw up again, narrowly missing her legs, and sadly, also narrowly missing the bucket sitting on her side of the bed.

When I reached the pub, Mike had, as directed, placed a pint and meat pie on the bar for me. The pub was quite busy, locals in one corner filling two tables, a group of four hikers at another table, each with a pint of beer in one hand and a sandwich in the other, all peering at a map of the north side of the Island. On the forth table were three brightly clothed early twenty- somethings, all looking innocent and earnest as they heatedly discussed the virtues of hitch-hiking to the little ferry to Cainneoch and it's slightly whacky community.

Having glanced around, I ignored the tables which contained tourists, nodded in the direction of the locals tables of locals, who all nodded back at me, and made for the garishly lit bar. All of the bar stools were empty, except one.

Jessica was sitting on a high bar stool, an orange juice in one hand, rapping her bright scarlet nails along the bar top impatiently with the other. Mike was saying something to her, his head close to hers, his eyes fixed on her eyes. She looked over his shoulder, glancing around the bar, apparently not listening to what he was saying to her, her eyes a little glazed. As I got to the bar, her eyes focused and she smiled at me; a genuine smile, bright and pleasing. I sat down on the stool next to her and acknowledged Mike, who tore his eyes from Jessica's face and scowled at me.

I took a gulp from my pint, savoring the sour, tangy taste for a moment as it washed over my tongue and down my throat. "Thanks for this, Mike. The she-witch from the bank is working me hard, so I'm here to escape for an hour. She's locked in with Esme now for lunch or something." I picked up my fork, and after rubbing it clean on the blue paper napkin provided for me and scowling a little at the smears left on it from the dish washing machine, I attacked the pie biting through the thick flakey crust and into the meat and gravy. Mike went off to serve one of the locals who'd come to the bar for a refill, wiping up spilled beer with a bar-towel as he went. Jessica shuffled her stool a little closer to mine and smiled, running her tongue along her bottom lip. I stopped chewing and watched her, suddenly unaware of anyone else in the pub. She rubbed both her hands over her denim clad legs and subconsciously pulled at her red shirt, displaying her supple cleavage and the edges of her red lacy bra. She licked her lips again leaving them glistening in the light of the bar.

"Hey, darling boy," she muttered at me, in a more deep and sultry voice than I was used to. "Is the horrid lass from the bank giving you a hard time?"

I nodded and as my tummy rumbled, remembered to chew what was in my mouth before taking another swig of beer. I looked over at the mirror behind Jessica and noticed Mike scowling at us. He still had deep feelings for her even though she had worked her way through most of the men our age on the island and a fair number of the ferry's crew as well; although for some unknown reason, she kept coming back to me, which suited my libido just fine.

I filled my fork again, the crumbling pastry slipping off and back onto my plate. I picked it up with my fingers and put it into my mouth.

"Can I help you feel better, Edward?" she leant forward, running one hand up my leg towards my cock, which knowing what was heading toward it, was starting to solidify in anticipation.

"How about you and I give each other a hard time?" she whispered, looking at me through her lashes, her blond hair spilling over her left shoulder.

Of course, being well brought up, I knew better than to turn down a genuine request from a young lady. It would be rude to say no to her.

She put her mouth next to my ear with her lips teasing my neck just below the lobe, as she rather roughly cupped my cock in her hand, and squeezed. "My parents are on the mainland, they're coming back on the three o'clock boat," she paused, breathing rather heavily, causing me to wonder whether she had developed asthma. "Let's head over to the post office flat for some…," she floundered suddenly, her nefarious plot sound but her grasp of the English language obviously failing her. She started breathing heavily again, and again I feared for her health. She licked at my ear causing my jeans to tighten a little.

"-sex," she said suddenly. I realized that she had given up trying to be eloquent and that her asthma was an attempt at sexy, husky breathing.

I groaned a little because I was turned on, but mainly because each time I slept with Jess I swore to myself it would be the last. She was too into me and I wasn't into her at all; I loved her, but like a cousin or a best girlfriend. We had known each other so long and had been through a lot together, but she wasn't 'the one' for me and I hated the fact she thought I was 'the one' for her. Mike adored her, and perhaps I should just let them get their act together. But being a selfish bastard, and a horny one at that, I was once again going to shag her brains out and leave her wanting more.

"You go first," I muttered into her hair, inhaling the scent of her perfumed shampoo and the faint smell of cigarettes, "I'll follow in five minutes. Leave the door on the latch". She giggled and jumped off her stool, almost skipping out of the pub. I took another few bites of my lunch and a couple more chugs from my beer, and after instructing Mike to put the cost of the food and drink on my tab, garnering yet another angry scowl from him in the process, headed after Jess, not bothering to put my cap on my head or button up my coat.

I pushed the back door to the post office open, shaking the rain off my head as I walked in. I turned and locked the door behind me, making sure that no-one else could sneak in after me. I made sure that the door between the hall and the store was locked as well, and then turned to my left passing through the door to where my afternoon delight awaited me.

I heard slow, Gaelic music playing from the direction of Jessica's bedroom, and alongside it, the not so dulcet tones of Jess singing along, her voice just off key and wavering a little. I recognized the words and the voice, Capercaillie's singers' vocals soaring above Jess's soft verbal scrawl, as they both bemoaned something, probably lost land or sheep or love or something.

I slipped off my shoes and then pushed open the door to Jess's room. It looked the same as it always had, the same paintings on the walls, the same corkboard above her desk which doubled as a chest for her clothes. The same putridly painted pink walls that I'd always hated and the same dark purple curtains hung that she'd had in there as long as I could remember, still reeked like a shady massage parlor. Piles of soft toys and dolls littered one corner, a mass of pink clothes in another. She was swaying to the music, not in time with it, but all the same entranced by it. She wore practically nothing, her red lace bra containing her enhanced breasts and her backside falling out of the sides of the matching string thong. Her hips overhung the top of the thong very slightly, giving her what Alice referred to unkindly, as a muffin top. Her figure was not quite so youthful these days.

The thought of that made me laugh to myself, and in true Edward-Cullen-has-no-internal-filter-form, she heard me splutter, spinning around to face me while tottering slightly on the high heeled shoes she hadn't been wearing in the pub, but appeared to be wearing now.

I stood looking at her, staring at her breasts, which didn't budge at all when the rest of her body moved. They never ceased to amaze me. Their inability to wiggle as she moved caused Tanya vast quantities of amusement, and caused Alice and Rose to raise their eyebrows in mock shock when they saw her. Her thighs did wiggle though, just a touch, as did that muffin top. I smiled again.

She walked towards me across the tiny room, crossing it in four steps, pushing the door shut behind me. Then bringing her hands to my shoulders, she pulled my dripping coat down along my arms, and let it drop with a thump onto the floor.

"Edward," she murmured, as she ran her hands over my shirt sleeves and along my chest to the buttons. My cock, which had slightly deflated during the rainy walk from the nearby pub, started to stand at attention again. I closed my eyes and exhaled loudly. She started to undo the buttons of my shirt, whispering my name as each came undone, wobbling slightly in shoes she wasn't used to wearing by any stretch. Island girls wore welly boots, or when dressing up, Converse boots. Isabella didn't wobble in her heels though, she stood tall and upright. I wondered for a moment how she'd look in wellies and my floor length raincoat. My cock hardened at the glorious thought of her in those and nothing else.

I felt my shirt being peeled from my body and I lifted my hands to run my fingers through Isabella's delicious chocolate-colored hair, nuzzling into her neck, just above the beautiful curve of her collarbone, to take in her perfume.

She whimpered as I started to undo my belt and the buttons of my jeans. Keeping my eyes closed, I ran my fingers along her forehead, over her cheekbones, and then down her neck, sliding my hand behind her head, grasping just below her hairline. I felt a deep warmth from her body being close to mine.

"Edward," Isabella whispered, "you're not normally this gentle, this soft with me." She moved away from me, dropping to free my cock from my boxers, and I realized, to my utter horror, that I had been fantasizing about the monster back up at the house, and the woman taking me in her mouth was Jessica.

"Darling boy, you're not as, err, hard, as you could be," she said as she let my now suddenly limp cock slip out of her mouth. "Let me rectify that." With that she ran her nails just below the base, whilst licking the top, around and around, up and down the shaft, her mouth and her hand meeting, sucking and nipping, bringing me back to a state more useful to both of us. She cupped her other hand around my balls and started to squeeze. As I pulled her hair, pulling my fingers through it over and over, my cock pushed against the back of her throat. I kept my eyes open as she sucked so that I didn't fuck this up and call her by the wrong name or something equally stupid. I felt myself getting closer and closer, Jess's ability to give great head was second to none, and deciding that she deserved better than me cumming all over her face and in her mouth, which she hated but put up with, I pulled her up by the shoulders and pressed her body up against mine.

"C'mon Jessie, let me return the favor while I still can." I threw her down on the white lacy quilt on top of her bed, and immediately drew my lips close to her pussy. Traces of dark blond stubble was apparent around the sides of the red lace thong, and I felt myself shudder a little. I moved the tiny crotch bit of the thong away, her wetness having soaked through. She shifted her hips to better position herself and moaned, lifting her pussy expectantly towards me.

I licked my lips and moved my head down, nipping at her clit as she grabbed my hair and pulled me in. I moved one hand up towards her breasts, and grabbing at the more than a handful there, remembered that they felt like the rocks in the bay to me, and probably nothing much better to her. I tried to squeeze it, to get something from it. I loved breasts, really loved them. I loved looking at a woman and seeing her breasts and didn't mind what size they were, although I did like them heavy. I loved biting at nipples and licking them to a point. I loved putting my head between two breasts and feeling warmth there and I loved putting my cock there and fucking them. The basic rule though was that they had to be real. Not like this. Remembering where I was, I sighed into her pussy causing her to squirm, and I turned the sigh into a hum as I started to lick at the folds, running my tongue along the length of her labia, giving her as much as I could. She was starting to buck her hips at me

"Fuck's sake Edward, put your tongue in me, fuck me with your tongue, make me yours." I stopped for a nano second, thinking. I'd fuck her hard with my tongue, with my fingers, with my cock as long as there was a condom present, but would I make her mine? No. Never.

At that moment, I realized this wasn't fair to Jessica. I didn't want her. I mean, I wanted her, I wanted to fuck her 'til she screamed and had trouble walking. But that was it. Should I stop now? Apologize, leave her, and let her move on? I started to crawl up her body, replacing my tongue in her soaking wet folds with my fingers. Hell no, I was going to cum inside her while we called each other's names and I'd deal with the rest another time. Oh, careful, nearly lost an eye on her nipple.

I pushed myself up onto my arms, as the head of my penis nudged her wanting pussy.

"Jessie," I crooned at her as she started to run circles around my nipples with her finger nails. "I need to fuck you now. I want to cum inside you now." She nodded mutely and reached across to the bedside table, searching for a moment before finding a condom. She tore the top off the packet with her teeth, and then leaned over slightly, rolling it down my cock, stroking me as she did. Keeping my arms straight, I aligned my hips with hers and pushed myself inside her, not waiting to be gentle, not wanting to be gentle. I could feel her walls tightening around me as I started to pump in and out, her hips rising to meet mine, trying to fuck me back. I shut my eyes and she started squealing, the noise not conducive to my eventual and inevitable orgasm, but meaning thankfully, she wasn't far off from hers. Her hips moved faster and faster, the friction bringing me to the edge, and as she came, she yelled my name repeatedly, fingers digging into my back, my arms, my chest.

I needed to release now, even though she'd already orgasmed. None of this, that's okay darling, I'll just lie here and let my hard-on die down crap. I didn't let up, ramming in and out; faster, harder. My eyes clenched shut, my teeth grinding together as I concentrated on not seeing hair the color of autumn leaves, eyes the color of melting milk chocolate, tiny hands, navy blue suits, annoyed snorts. I could feel pressure building, my erection becoming painfully hard, the skin tightening around my balls. The need to cum became overwhelming.

As the pressure released and I exploded inside her, I shouted her name. Over and over and over again.

I collapsed on top of her, breathing quickly and heavily, and drawing her to me, realized I'd fucked up. The name I'd shouted hadn't been Jessie's. It had been Isabella's.

Fuck.

For a moment Jessica didn't move. She remained as stone, strikingly similar to her breasts. Perhaps she hadn't noticed. Perhaps she'd been caught up in the passion of the moment, as I had been.

Yeah, because my luck is just that good, that's what happened. Bollocks. Of course, not a fucking chance. All hell let loose.

She pushed me off the bed, using her surprisingly strong legs and feet, narrowly missing kicking me in my now utterly deflated penis, screaming at me.

"Who the FUCK is Isabella? Why did you call her name when you're making love to me?"

Making love? Oh shit. She started to throw things at me as I tried to gather my damp clothes. "Edward Cullen. Of all the things you've done over the years, this is surely the worst." Tears started pouring out of her eyes and down her cheeks as she continued to throw things at me, mainly, thankfully, the soft stuffed toys she collected for some ridiculous reason. I pulled on my jeans, stuffing my boxers into my back pocket, while dodging a Garfield shaped projectile thrown with alarming accuracy towards my head.

"You are a FUCKWIT," she screamed "A half- arsed, lousy lay, wanky, two faced FUCKWIT." Her screaming became uncontrolled, more pained, and more irate. "I've loved you since I was nine years old. FUCKING NINE YEARS OLD. And I keep hoping that you'll realize you love me too." I did up my shirt, grabbed my coat and slid towards the door. "But evidently all I am to you is an easy lay. I hate you, you fucker, I fucking HATE YOU." With that she stepped towards me and slapped my face. I deserved it. I deserved everything she threw at me. I hurt her. I think I'd always known that she loved me in a manner I'd never reciprocate, but I always thought she knew the score. Well, evidently she didn't and evidently I had fucked up in a major way. I opened the bedroom door quickly and quietly and as she picked up the used condom from her bed, I ducked out, escaping her anger. As I shut the bedroom door, I heard it splatter against the other side, and then her crying hysterically. I leaned against the door with my eyes closed, wishing I could take this all back.

"Jessie" I called softly, "Jessie, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

"FUCK OFF CULLEN!" was the response through the door.

I slipped my feet back into my shoes and headed off, quickly, dialing the shepherd's mobile phone, hoping he was in the house for lunch and not with sheep in the back field.

"Ben? It's Edward. I've just fucked up. Yup, big time. Can Angela come down and look after Jess. I've really done it this time." I paused, waiting for Ben to talk to his wife and respond. "Thanks Ben, I owe you one."

As I stepped back out into the rain, I put my hand up to my cheek. It burned. I deserved that. I was indeed, a fuckwit.

As I walked back toward the jeep, which was parked by the rear door to the pub, I could see Mike's face looking out the window, staring directly at my jeep. I had left the pub just forty minutes before, and now it seemed quiet, empty. I thought about going in for another pint, and then thought better of it. Responsibilities awaited me which would not be put off. I was supposed to be driving Isa-, Ms. Swan, around the estate to show her, in real terms, what we had to offer. A guided tour of the house was scheduled in the evening, along with a whiskey tasting and we hopefully could entice the guests to spend some money in the gift shop and café. I hoped that she would see the plus points of what we were doing. I had to make her see we were viable, that she couldn't close us down. If the house went, then not only would Esme and I, and I suppose Carlisle, lose our home, but a number of people would lose their jobs. We also owned the pubs, the post office, tourist office and general store, a share in the ferry terminal and its shop, along with a number of holiday cottages… The list went on. _Why,_ I thought to myself, _can I not make this work? Why don't I make any_ _bloody money?_

As I reached the jeep, I heard yelling behind me.

"Cullen, why the hell can't you leave her alone? She should be mine, and you're fucking her and she doesn't bother with me. She should be mine you FUCKWIT!"

Ah, the calm and collected Mike Newton. Should I wind him up or be kind.

Neither.

"Mike. I think she and I are finally through. She's all yours."

"I don't know if I want your sloppy seconds now," he snapped back.

Oh fuck. I'd really screwed Jess and in every possible way. Not good.

"Your loss, Mike. But you do love her. And she, in her own way, loves you. Give it time."

I turned to get in jeep as he caught up to me.

"Fuck, Cullen, your face. That's _definitely_ a Jessica shaped imprint on your face, man. Maybe she is over you this time."

"Leave her for the moment, Mike," I advised as I shut the door and rolled down the window.

"Edward, what did you do?" he asked, his face angry.

"She'll tell you, I'm sure. I'm off. I have to see the monster from Loch Ness." He looked at me, a puzzled expression crossing his face as I spun out of the pebbled car park and off to the house for round two of Edward Cullen vs. Ms. Swan, and round three of Edward Cullen vs. Womankind.

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**Capercaillie is a great folk/rock band. You can find them on YouTube. Please review if you haven't already. Chapter four is half way through it's rejig. Will be with you soon. Thank you for reading On My Own.**


	5. Chapter 4

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my eternally patient betas. Here's the rejig of Chapter Four.**

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the places. Official disclaimer is own my profile page and on my website (link is on my profile page)**

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With each mile I drove up the road, I found that my guilt at what I'd done to Jessica was slowly fading into the back of my mind. I didn't need anyone, and although she had been useful and available over the years, I probably should have stopped seeing her after our teenage dalliances. I told myself I didn't care, but was acutely aware that she deserved better than me. And it kind of fucked Mike over, as he continued to adore her even though she happily returned to my bed every single time I crooked a finger or nodded my head in her general direction. I'd done plenty of stupid and irresponsible things before, which along with the more horrific memories of war, had lived in a lovely little compartment tucked away in the back of my brain I used to I store all those things I would rather just forget. Once stuffed into that little dark corner, I could just ignore them. Some of them made their way back to the surface, bubbling up during dreams and nightmares to leave a residue of their tales for me to fight through in the morning haze and drizzle of the following day. But for the most part, I managed to compartmentalize my life, squashing the things I wanted to forget and living in and for the moment.

Living for the moment was definitely the way forward, a philosophy I always tried to stick with. That was possibly the reason my business was failing. I was great at dealing with the here and now, not so hot with the has been or will be. The staff was always paid, the animals fed, and I made sure everything ran pretty much as it should. Most of the time it didn't run as well as it potentially might, but all the same it ran. Actually, that was a cop out. All of the time, life and Glen Glas stumbled along, hobbling from one day to the next, not brilliant, not great, but stumbling into each day. And then finding some way to stumble again into the next.

I arrived back at the house, the rain still pouring down and the sky now dark and heavy. All traces of the morning's sunshine and rainbow had washed away, making the memory of them seem a lie. The jeep screeched to a halt by the private back gate, and I jumped out and ran for cover by the back door.

As I hurried past the garden apartments, I happened to glance through one of the two bay windows of Esme's kitchen, where I could see her and Ms. Swan standing next to each other at the white butler's sink, laughing together as they cleaned up after lunch. I stopped and stared, the rain somehow managing to by- pass my coat and run down the back of my neck. They seemed so happy, so settled. I hated her at that moment. That was my mother she was laughing with. _My_ mother. Not hers. She had been here less than a day and was already muscling in on my family, as well as my business.

I remained outside watching them through the window. I wasn't being sneaky and as such wasn't spying, but just wanted to see the object of my irritation interact with my mother. Know your enemy; they used to tell us in the army and at that moment, I knew I hated her. She was going to take my business away, she was pushing her way into my mother's affections and she'd even managed to fuck up my arrangement, or whatever it was, with Jessica. Esme turned away from the window, leaning against the sink. Isabella stood next to her, still facing outside. Her face had a look of sadness to it, kind of lost. She dipped her head down a little and Esme put a hand on her shoulder. For one totally irrational moment, I wanted to be the one putting my hand on her shoulder, comforting her. That feeling, that inconvenience, lasted about two seconds as Isabella looked up and caught me gazing at their somber exchange. She raised her eyebrows at me, and tipped her head a little, probably thinking that I was simple as I stood there getting pounded by the torrential rain.

I pulled myself together and entered through the back door to be greeted loudly and enthusiastically by the dogs. Any hope I had of sneaking in and heading upstairs without drawing attention to myself had just disappeared, thanks to the cacophony of noise from the animals, a clamor amplified by the high ceiling and thick, bare, stone walls of the hallway. I sighed in defeat as I peeled off my coat, hanging it over the end of the banister. I stood for a moment, hypnotized by the drips which ran from the top of the material down towards the ground, starting at the shoulder with great speed as they rapidly wove their way down the waxy material, coming to a halt at the hem before hanging on to the end of the coat until they were too heavy to support themselves and falling to the ground with a tiny plopping sound. Each suicidal drop closely followed the next.

"Good lunch?" questioned a soft voice from behind me. I raised my hand back to my cheek as I turned to face Ms. Swan. She smiled at me, but the smile faded as she saw the print. "Oh, it looks like your lunch was more eventful than ours!" She looked beautiful as she wrinkled her face questioningly. A pause. "I hate to think what happened. And to be honest, I don't actually want to know." She smiled an almost smile at me. "I had a lovely lunch with your mother. She has some interesting ideas. You should listen to her sometimes."

"Ideas about what?" I queried.

"About the Estate." She looked at me as if I was a simpleton, an idiot. She headed back towards the office and as she reached the entrance her tone changed slightly as she regained her business-like demeanor. "I'd really like to see around the estate today. The rain hasn't cleared up, but if we wait for that, I suspect we'd be waiting for weeks. There are a few things I'd like to look at here before we go. If you could get me the relevant files, I'll get started. Perhaps we could leave in an hour or so?"

She sat down at her desk again, looking at her computer and rubbing her arms as if to banish the airs' brisk chill, the chill she had caused. "There's an email here for you from Jacob Black saying to expect them on the noon ferry tomorrow so you can escape me." She swiveled her chair to face me as I floundered around for the files she wanted. "You don't need to use them as an excuse, you know. I will have plenty to do here, and as I appear to have to keep reiterating, I don't want to be here. I'll work to get this job done quickly and efficiently. The sooner I can salvage something from the mess you have created, the sooner I can head back to Inverness to work on it from there. I'm more than happy to work without you tomorrow as long as I can get a hold of you on your cell phone. Judging by today's lunchtime conversations, Esme will be more helpful and forthcoming than you are anyway, so you can spend your day tomorrow in the pub with your girlfriend and your friends."

I realized that I hadn't actually said a word since I entered the house. Where to start?

"She is _not_ my girlfriend."

Way to go Cullen, bloody great start. Way to start with the least appropriate and useful thing to say. Ms. Swan raised one eyebrow at my response, then smiled her business smile and turned back to her computer. She punched at a couple of keys, bringing up what looked like multiple spreadsheets while muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "what an ass" and shaking her head slightly. She pushed her glasses up over the bridge of her nose and pulled a file onto her lap for inspection, signaling that our conversation, such as it was, was now over.

I whistled to the dogs in an attempt to get their attention but they completely ignored me, instead preferring the company of the monster. I gave up without much of a fight and headed up the stairs to find a painkiller and some coffee. And to see if the inexplicable hard-on, that had just reared its not so ugly head, would disappear of its own accord.

An hour later, as commanded by her Royal Pain-in-my-arseness, I was waiting under the cover of a couple oak trees next to the jeep, watching the pounding rain while talking to Emmett on my mobile phone. Emmett was at Twickenham, watching an international rugby match between England and Scotland. Or rather, as he put it, _THE_ international rugby match.

"Honestly, Em, she's a fucking nightmare. When can you come up? Jasper can't get here until Easter, but I thought that you and Rose might come and show me a little support."

I listened for a couple moments while he came up with some excuses for not arriving until to Easter either.

"It's your house too, Em, your heritage. If she makes me sell, then I will have failed. I'll have nothing to show for the last few years, and Dad will have been right." I paused for dramatic effect, hoping for some sympathy. "Please." I hated begging, but it worked with Emmett, his big brother complex meant that he loved digging me out of holes. Often of course, when we had been growing up, he had been the one who'd put me in the hole in the first place and on more than one occasion, did that literally.

"Easter," Emmett said, his tone indicating that was his final word on the matter. "Email or call me if I can help in any palpable way. Otherwise, have her speak to Mum."

"She's been speaking to Mum. I'm not convinced that's the best way forward. I half expect them to be knitting muesli together before the weekend is out and at the same time, plowing an allotment with their bare hands to grow their own vegetables for sale at a farmers market of their own creation. You know what Mum is like when she gets going, lots of crazy ideas."

I could hardly hear Emmett above the roar of the crowd around him. "Bro. Mum may spout wild schemes, but she will do what is right for Glen Glas. And I'm sure that your _monster_ won't take any notice of the plans and schemes, unless she thinks they might actually work. Anyway, I have to go, the second half is about to start. I'll call tomorrow to see if you're still surviving."

A tiny clicking noise pinged in my ear and the phone went dead. I flipped my phone shut and got into the jeep, starting the engine and hoping that the wind screen wipers would work so Ms. Swan could see. I found myself annoyed by Emmett; he should have more time for me, for Glen Glas. But he'd chosen not to take it on, so perhaps I'd just have to have to suck it up and do it on my own. I banged my forehead against the steering wheel a couple of times in irritation. The day was not turning out as I'd planned.

Bollocks.

I looked up through the windscreen as I heard the ornate, heavy, metal, side gate crash shut and saw Ms. Swan walking towards the jeep. I recognized the green Hunter wellington boots I'd given Esme for her last birthday, on Ms. Swan's feet. The green, half length, waxed jacket swamping her, but effectively keeping her protected from the downpour, was one that Rosalie kept here. She even wore a floppy green rain hat, again familiar, probably Esme's. How could someone _not_ have the correct kit for this sort of weather while both living and working in Scotland? I drove the jeep slowly towards her, effectively meeting her half way. Her head was down, the collar of the jacket up around her ears with the sides of the hat meeting the top edges of the collar. The coat was so big her hands were hidden inside the sleeves, and instead of the coat reaching her knees, it hung down to her ankles. Ridiculous girl; should have thought this through better. I was grateful that Esme had seen fit to lend her clothes, as we really didn't want her here and sick.

I stopped the jeep so she could get in, leaning over to push open the door. She scrambled in and, shoving the sleeves of the coat up her arms, fiddled for a moment or two with the seat belt until it was safely fixed in place.

She smelt of roses.

Over the smell of dirt and grime and damp dog and gasoline, I could smell fucking roses. I inhaled a little more deeply than normal. Mmmmmm... Roses... My cock started to harden again, and I shifted slightly in my seat trying to minimize the visibility of my bulge.

"Are you okay Mr. Cullen?" she inquired, her brow furrowed, her eyes questioning.

"Yes!" I snapped back, ramming the gear stick into reverse, and pressing my foot down hard on the accelerator pedal. Of course, because my life sucked in a hideously sucky way, the gear stick pinged out on its own accord from reverse, making the engine roar like an angry devil.

She coughed. I was fairly convinced that her cough was hiding a laugh causing my hate for her to return at that moment. My erection disappeared. Sort of.

I snorted and grabbed at the gear stick again, again plunging it into reverse, this time holding it in place. The tires squealed on the rain-soaked tarmac as I spun the jeep around and sped out of the parking area, narrowly missing a stone wall and two of the dogs. Of course, that was a wasted gesture, as I had to slow for the tiny, tall, speed-bumps on the driveway put in by my father after Emmett drove into four lambs while driving far too fast one spring.

I took the first bump too fast, knowing it was coming, bracing myself for impact. Ms. Swan, of course, had no idea what was coming up, and we hit the bump with enough force that she narrowly missed banging her head on the ceiling.

"Mr. Cullen. _Please."_ she snarled. I thought about speeding up for a moment and then realized I had to point out a number of the tied houses and farm buildings, so speeding would again be counterproductive. A vision of her hurt, though not too badly of course, and bundled up in my bed while I looked after her crossed my mind. My bed. Her. Hold on, she's apparently naked. Arugh. Hello again hard-on, and I again shifted my right cheek a bit higher to provide cover for my rising aspirations. Dammit Cullen, concentrate.

"Dammit Cullen, concentrate." Oh hell, filter's on the blink again. Fuck, how much came out _that_ time?

"You said something, Mr. Cullen?" she asked.

"Just thinking out loud," I muttered. I stole a glance at her. She wasn't looking at me. She was looking all around, peering out of the jeep's rain streaked windows, taking everything in. She didn't look as if she was going to wallop me. No, there were no signs of a slap forthcoming, so the conversation with my penis was again in my head. I'd soon have to start going around with duct-tape over my mouth to make sure I didn't say anything untoward in front of anyone. In front of her.

I slowed gently and pulled into the unmade track leading to the brick farm buildings. There were five houses along the main part of the track, set in a terrace, all with small front gardens, each of which growing wild, apart from one. The house at the end was kept well and looked like something from the front of a jigsaw puzzle box. Ben and Angela lived here, their house coming as part of the package with Ben's job. The other four houses were knocked through and used by the summer staff each year. It cost us next to nothing to keep the buildings habitable. They were basic, dry and had no central heating. The long house had two fireplaces in the living area and kitchen and one in each of the eight single bedrooms. There was a minimal amount of furniture in the long house and a pay-phone, although it was barely used these days as most of the staff, who were mainly American, Australian and Eastern European students, seemed to have top of the range mobile phones. They got use of the houses rent free, but paid their utility bills. I thought that fair. If they damaged anything, it came out of their last week's pay. It was a good enough deal. Of course, this pissed off the locals who worked for me as they received the same salaries without the housing perks, but they were all told that the space was available, if they wanted to share with the temporary help.

Behind the houses were four larger buildings, again built together. One housed all our farm machinery, another the old cars of mine, Emmett's and Jasper's, that we couldn't bear parting with and about which we told ourselves we'd rebuild one Easter or Christmas when we were all together. Yeah, right. Another of the buildings held what remained of the local weaver's business. There had been a weaver making cloth at Glen Glas for over fifty years. About a year after my father died I reviewed the rent we made from the current weavers and discovered that for all intents and purposes, we were paying them to be there. One heated argument later, and they had moved lock, stock and weaving loom over to Cainneach.

Another Edward Cullen success story.

We pulled up outside Ben & Angela's house, and I climbed out of the jeep, stepping straight into a muddy puddle, sending splashes of mud all over my jeans. Ms. Swan didn't move for a moment. She remained in her seat looking at me as if I was mad. I poked my head back into the vehicle.

"If you want to see more than just the outsides, then you have to come with me I'm afraid. It's only rain. It's not going to hurt you."

She hissed something at me that again sounded like 'ass', and slammed open her door, whacking it into the side of the shingled wall in front of Angela's garden. There was a slight crunching noise as the door wedged itself in place, followed by a grinding as Ms. Swan forced it shut again. I found I was grinding my teeth. My jeep. My precious, precious, jeep. She was wrecking that now.

She had the grace to look a little sheepish when we met in front of the jeep. "I appear to have scratched the edge of the door," she admitted. "Obviously I'll pay for it to be fixed. Although," she paused and looked me straight in the eyes, "It's so damn knocked about you'll be lucky if you can identify the damage I've just caused." I gazed at her in silence as she walked away, unable to speak. My dick began doing its own thing again as I watched her stumble on some stones and turn her ankle in a puddle, managing to stay on her feet, but only just.

I ran to catch up with her, head down, hands in my jacket pockets. We walked around in relative silence, while I told her what I knew about each building. She nodded and said helpful things like "aha" and "mhmm" during the appropriate silences, and occasionally asked a question or made a remark. After about fifteen minutes, we had looked at each building from the outside, and viewed the uninhabited ones from the inside. She took a quick look at the surrounding fields, asking about an empty and dilapidated croft house at the top of the nearest field.

As we arrived back at the jeep, there was a sunshine-yellow colored VW Beetle parked behind it. A shout from one of the houses stopped us both in our tracks.

"Edward Cullen. You come up here right now to see me. Now."

Shit, Angela looked mighty pissed at me.

"Errr… Hi, Ange. Can I pop back later?" I motioned to Ms. Swan and then back towards myself. "We're rather busy at the moment."

"Oh," Angela responded quickly, her voice sounding less angry suddenly. "I didn't see you had company. Why don't you come in for a quick cup of tea?" She headed down to the car, her yellow umbrella hardly sheltering her from the weather.

Oh fuck.

"Angela Cheney, this is Ms. Swan. Ms. Swan, Angela Cheney, wife of Ben, our shepherd. She works at the tourist office in the village."

Angela raised her eyebrows and held out her hand to Ms. Swan, keeping it under the umbrella.

"Please, call me Bella," Ms. Swan said to Angela.

Something crossed Angela's face, and her eyes opened a little wider than usual. "Bella," she crooned. "As in Isabella?" She smiled at Ms. Swan and then shot a glare in my direction. Fuck, Jessie had told her. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"Yes, but I prefer Bella."

"C'mon in. I'll give you a cup of tea and you can ask me questions about the estate if you like. That's what you're doing with Edward, isn't it? Sorting out Glen Glas?" Angela and Ms. Swan… _Bella,_ headed up the small path to the house.

Fuck. Does everyone know my business?

"Fuck, Ange, does everyone know my business?" I yelled. Sod you internal filter, I'm glad you're off right now.

"No, Edward, not everyone. Don't worry," Angela responded. "Now, are you coming in, or are you going to stand there for thirty minutes while poor Bella dries off and has tea and cake?"

I followed the girls up the small shingled path and into the literal and figurative warmth of Angela and Ben's home.

Forty minutes later, Ms. Swan and I left the Cheney's house. Angela had talked the entire time, hardly breaking for breath, telling Ms. Swan about the farm buildings, the staff, and the tea shop. As she was about to launch into a spiel about the finer details of Ben's role as shepherd, I woke myself from the state of semi-consciousness I'd lapsed into as the heat from the fire warmed me and demanded we leave before the weather got any worse. I wanted to get the preliminary expedition of the estate done in time to get home and changed before the bus party arrived for their private tour of the house and obligatory glass of whiskey and bite of haggis. The tourists lapped that traditional shit up.

As we left, Angela scribbled something down on a scrap of paper and passed it to Ms. Swan, who glanced at it and slipped it into her coat pocket. I raised an eyebrow at Ange. "It's my number. I offered to take Bella out while she's here. Did you not listen to a word we were saying?"

"Umm. No. Yes. Are you sure? I mean, why?" I stuttered.

Ms. Swan smiled her perfect smile. "Angela pointed out that I'm on my own here for a while. She's offered to give me the gossip, show me the, err, sights." They both laughed. Girls.

We turned and headed toward the car. Ange stopped me as Ms. Swan climbed into her seat, and pulled me back a bit. "Edward, I've just spent two hours with Jessica; two hours of her sobbing, screaming, crying, swearing and cursing you." Her face was furious, a sight I'd not witnessed before. Angela was known for being easy going, everyone's friend. "You called her Isabella, when you... errr... thingyed. For God's sake Edward, that's bloody awful. Jess is devastated. She really thought that you were 'it.' I know you didn't feel that, but there was no excuse for today." She looked over my shoulder towards the jeep. "I like her," She nodded towards Ms. Swan, who was looking out through the front windscreen, whilst talking on her mobile phone. "You'd do well to treat her nicely. Don't screw with her."

I started to respond "I, really Ange, I don't know what you're talking about...I just want her gone...I just want her out of here as soon as possible...I just want her…" Angela put her hand over my mouth.

"Sort the house out, then sort yourself out. You're a mess. A thirty-two year old mess."

I tried to interrupt her again, but her hand remained over mouth. "Go. Get it done. I spoke with Alice the other day, they'll all be up for Easter. She was talking about the rugby match, the egg hunt, and the Ceilidh. It's only five weeks away. We need to get it sorted out."

"Yeth, othkay," I muttered through her fingers, and then licked her hand so she would let go.

"Fuck it, Cullen! You're bloody awful." She looked disgusted for a moment and then she laughed. "GO. Save our livelihoods."

I bent forward and kissed her on the forehead. "Bye Ange. Tell Ben I said hi. I'll be in touch." I ran down the path and jumped into the car. It smelt _softly_ of roses. Bugger. I'd forgotten. Erection, be gone.

I kept Ms. Swan in my peripheral vision as I turned the jeep around, and gathering that my filter was currently working, drove off to look at the properties and businesses in the village.

Two hours later, it was still pissing with rain with no let up in sight. We had visited the pub and blustered past the post office, tourist office and general store. I was putting off _that_ introduction as long as I could.

Mike's face lit up when we'd entered the Inn. I'd done my damndest to remain business-like, but ended up accepting the pint he poured me. Ms. Swan, to my surprise, downed a large whiskey, claiming that she needed warming up. Mike made a less than subtle comment about warming her up in other ways, and she rolled her eyes at me while making a noise that sounded like a cross between an embarrassed laugh and snort. He took this as encouragement and started to chat her up. She looked rather uncomfortable, and I was suddenly overcome with an unfamiliar urge. From the tips of my toes, the feeling started to fill my body, flowing through my veins, pulsating through each muscle, each tendon aching from the pressure; the need to protect her became overwhelming. The scope of my attentions narrowed into this single purpose.

I grabbed her by the elbow and lead her roughly from the pub, leaving an open mouthed Mike standing behind the bar looking slightly confused, and very pissed off.

As I reached the outer door, I could hear him screaming at me. "Fuck's sake Cullen, two in one day? What are you doing to me?"

I ignored him, and I pointedly ignored the look on Ms. Swan's face. Once the door swung shut behind us, she ripped her arm out from my hand, stumbling a little in her haste to get away. Anger and abject irritation were threatening to burst out. I'd known her for twenty two hours, but I already knew the signs. I knew that as soon as we reached the jeep she was going to rip my cock off, and not in any pleasant manner.

We climbed back into the jeep and I braced myself. I no longer felt protective of her however, instincts for self preservation had begun to take over, and I put my hands over my lap to protect my assets.

"Shall we get going?" she asked, sounding calmer than I expected, her rage evident in her beautiful chocolaty eyes.

I nodded and turned over the engine, heading off to look at land on the far side of the house. These acres of land and fields were used for either cattle to graze on, or for the parts less lush, as pasture land for sheep.

We drove in silence for fifteen minutes and I began to feel annoyed with her. She had no right to make me feel like this. Arugh.

Our destination was one of the furthest fields from the house. It was fenced in on three sides, the forth side being the edge of the cliff with a one hundred foot drop to the sea. If we stood with our backs to the sea, this vantage point would allow us to see much of Glen Glas's land and properties. We climbed out of the jeep only to be met by howling winds. I struggled to stay standing and while holding onto the car's body and moved around to the passenger side of the jeep where Ms. Swan was clinging to her door whilst taking in her surroundings.

As I reached her, she turned to face me, her incredible eyes flashing with anger. "Mr. Cullen," she began, her voice quivering, "Please, I repeat, please, leave me alone. I am capable of taking care of myself. I am not a hick from the sticks. Men like Mr. Newton are merely an irritation. I can and will look after myself. I don't need you. Again; I am more than capable of looking after myself. On my own. Do you understand?"

No. Fuck. Yes. That was hot.

No, no it wasn't. Stop it, Cullen. You're a fool. She's a snarky bitch. Stop it. Gah!

She turned on her wellied heel, swinging her head as if to make her point, and her feet failed to maintain contact with the ground. I had inadvertently stopped by a mud patch, one which happened to be directly beside her door. As she turned her wellies slipped from under her, and before I'd made it far enough around the jeep to assist her, she upended, landing arse first in the mud. I reached out to help her up, unsure of my emotion; half tempted to laugh, half feeling that I should be worried. I stood in front of her and offered my hand to help pull her up. She looked at me with utter distain, and ignoring my offer, attempted to push herself up from the ground. Her hands kept slipping, and she was getting more and more muddy, and more and more frustrated.

Again, I offered a hand, now smiling though trying desperately hard not to smile, but finding it impossible to hold it back. She plopped back down in the puddle looking exasperated, and then stopped moving altogether as if she were thinking something out. Very slowly, she started to turn herself over, positioning herself on her knees, her delightful bottom sticking up in the air. My mind started to wander as I watched her struggle. Oh, the things I could do to her in that position, mud optional, of course. She placed her hands flat on the ground in front of her, and started to push herself up.

Mud. Mud is slippery.

Her hands slipped forward, and before I could breathe my next breath, she was lying flat with her face in the mud. I gave up watching at that point, and stood over her, feet to either side of her hips, and crouched down, placing my hands where I thought her waist should be, obscured as it was the huge coat. I gently pulled her up and she started to kick and scream, her hands and feet still slipping. I could still sense the smell of roses, which was amazing given she was coated in layers of mud and swathes of cow dung.

As I held Bella, I felt, for the first time in years, whole. Not alone.

I let her go quickly, making sure she was steady, and took a step back to look at her. She was muddy, very muddy. The coat was caked in it. The boots were caked in it. The hat was caked in it. Her hair, where it had come loose, was plastered with the stuff, and her face looked as if she was in army camouflage.

I laughed.

She slapped me.

Twice in one day.

Fuck my life.

We got back into the jeep silently and drove back to the house, not a word or sound uttered by either of us. When we came to a junction in the road, I snuck a look at her. Her muddy face was lined with tear tracks and I quickly averted my eyes.

I'd hurt her. I'd laughed at her. And for some reason I hated that. I hated myself.

When we reached the carport at the house, I apologized.

"Ms. Swan… Isabella." She looked at me as we walked side by side towards the back door. "I'm... I'm... Sorry. I didn't mean to laugh."

She looked up at me, and slowly dragged her forefinger through the mud on her cheek, smudging the tear stains and creating a line of pale skin through the natural facemask. "That's okay, Mr. Cullen. I'll live. I suppose it might have been a little funny." She smiled the tiniest of smiles, which didn't reach her eyes. With that she walked a little faster than me, and then turned around, flicking the small ball of mud, hitting me with unerring accuracy in the right eye. Her next smile did reach her eyes, and she ran towards the house, laughing.

The sound was incredible. Like bells. No, like piano keys. No, no, like an angel.

Again, as if on cue, my dick decided it was time to make an appearance.

We both peeled off our coats at the front door. I kept my back to her as a show of courtesy.

"Shower time, I think," I muttered, and watched as she walked up the steel cold stairs to the flat. "I'll meet you back here in an hour," I called after her, "Then we can finish up for the day in time for me to meet my coach party. Is that ok?"

"That's okay," came the angelic voice floating down the stairs, echoing off the walls and into my soul.

Fuck

I trudged up the stairs to my apartment part of the flat, and reaching my bathroom, switched on the shower.

I loved my bathroom. I loved my shower. It was a walk-in type affair; all tiles and mirrors, cream colors, recessed lights, clean and bright.

The water started to run hot, and I stripped off the rest of my clothes, throwing them onto the floor in the hallway outside the bathroom. As I pulled down my boxers, my cock sprung up, happy to be released.

I moaned.

I stepped under, what Esme assured me was a rainforest shower head, and was hit by a powerful stream of hot, pulsating water. I grabbed the soap from the dish and rubbed it all over my body, then spent a longer moment rubbing it up and down my cock, enjoying the sensation of the lubricant as it coated the solid organ in my hand. I took a deep breath as I placed the other hand against the back wall and started to stroke my cock. The windows and mirrors were already starting to steam up as I rubbed my hand up and down. Up and down, running my thumb over the top of the head each time I reached it. I closed my eyes, leaning forward slightly, supporting my weight with the hand that was against the wall and lost myself inside Bella. My breathing quickened as I felt her inner walls caressing me. Her eyes… Rub up, down, swirl at the head. Her hair… Up, down, swirl. Her lips… Up, down, swirl. The more I thought about her, the harder I got, and increasing urgency powered my up and down rhythm.

My breathing was becoming more and more erratic, and I could see, in my mind's eye, what I'd do to her if she were with me, when she was with me. I could see her face as she moved forward to kiss me. I could feel her mouth as she pushed her tongue against mine, trailing from my mouth, to my face, to my chest, to my stomach. I could all but feel her take me inside her mouth, her hot breath sucking and humming around my cock as she brought me closer and closer to release, one of her small hands wrapped around the base, the other massaging my balls.

As I came, I thought that again, for the second time that day, I called her name.

As the liquid spurted out onto the bathroom walls, I gasped at the sheer power of the best wank I'd ever given myself. I slid down the back wall, letting the water engulf me, cleansing my body and soul. Thank God she was at the other end of the apartment. Thank God she couldn't hear me. Thank God she thought I was an arse. This wasn't good. I didn't need anyone, and I hated that I wanted her so fuckingmuch.

Things had to change. After twenty-four hours, she had almost become an obsession, and I needed to get her out of my house and my business. We need to work more quickly than I'd anticipated to get this done. I didn't want her, I wanted no one, and I refuse to let that change.

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**Thank you for the reviews and PMs. Chapter Five is midway through the rejig process and will be with you soon. If you haven't reviewed, please do so. If you send me a PM, I'll try to answer it. Please remember though that responding is only possible if you have all the relevant permissions switched on :)**

**Oh - and just so you know - parcels from France rock my world - Dihenydd quite made my week/month/year...**


	6. Chapter 5

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my very lovely and patient betas. Here's the rejig of Chapter Five.**

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the places. Official disclaimer is own my profile page and on my website (link is on my profile page)**

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_Bella Swan_

As I moved along the hallway as quietly as I could manage, I could have sworn I heard Edward Cullen call my name from the bathroom. Well, maybe not so much called it, more like grunted it out in a loud and guttural moan. I could have been mistaken as the sounds were muffled through the closed door with shower water crashing in the bathroom and rain hammering against the windows making his strange utterances all the less clear. The window casings rattled in the wind, and the dogs were all running from room to room trying to find something; maybe Mr. Cullen, maybe just somewhere quiet to sleep. Maybe he had a radio on in there, one from which had a rather strangled sounding voice coming from it moaning the word _Bella._

I headed towards his room again to see if I could borrow a couple of extra dry towels. The towels Esme had previously lent me were soaked and I couldn't remember where she'd said I could find more. As I approached Mr. Cullen's quarters, I heard _him_.

And what I heard was definitely my name. Maybe.

Oh, God. Either I was delusional, or he was. Either way, it wasn't good.

It had been a horrible twenty four hours. In fact, it had been a horrible forty-eight hours. I didn't want to be here. Edward Cullen was well known at the Bank. He was well known in the Highlands and Islands. Aro had insisted on sending me, because he knew I wouldn't fall for Edward Cullen's renowned charms. I was renowned too, but not for the same reason's. I was known for being tough and heartless, a solid performer for the bank. I'd had to fight for everything I'd gained, everything I'd earned. Nothing had come easily to me. Growing up with my mother and step-father had been interesting to say the least. After moving from place to place I realized I needed more stability. That led me to move in with my father, which had been… functional. In many ways, I had been the parent in both cases. I'd kept Renee from coming undone before she met Phil and I'd shopped and cooked for Charlie. I created my own rules, ran my own life, and made sure that I achieved above and beyond what was expected of me. I had helped pay my way through college, working two jobs and still finishing at the top of my class. I had worked hard at the bank in Forks and then the head office in Seattle. Moving to Scotland to be with James was a mistake that had bitten me in the ass, and toughened me up even further. I'd thought I was in love with him, his British private school manners and charm had won me over not long after we met, and his near perfect accent made me weak in the knees.

I met him in May of 2007 while on vacation in Edinburgh. He travelled back and forth between the two countries once a month, ringing me every day we weren't together, emailing at least once a day. We were engaged the following December. After getting a VISA off the back of my paternal grandmother who was British, I moved into James' house in Portobello, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. I got a job immediately, working at a branch office of The Bank of the Highlands as the Assistant Manager, my experience in Seattle and Forks paying off. We were supposed to get married that April. My dress was almost finished, flights for my parents and a couple of other friends were booked, the reception paid for, and the wedding vows written. I decided to surprise him in his office one night while he was working late. I bought a couple of baked potatoes with his favorite fillings from the shop near the Cannongate so we could have supper together before heading home.

Sadly, he wasn't the only one who I surprised that evening. I found him in his office as expected, though he wasn't exactly working on the proposal he'd been telling me about for weeks. To my horror, I watched as he worked on Vicki, his secretary. They were having sex on his desk. More accurately, he was having sex with her, while she hugged the desk with her perfect ass pointed up in the air. His trousers lay down around his ankles and his flabby ass moved back and forth as he pounded into her. He looked annoyed at the disturbance, and then shocked. I pointed out to the idiot that he should have locked the office door, then threw the potatoes at them, unfortunately missing them both by miles and only managing to splatter baked beans and butter over the white walls of his office.

I left them to their indiscretions, ignoring his pleas for me to stop and her self-satisfied cackles which followed me down the hall to the elevator. Given that he didn't even have the decency to pull out as he called for my return; my decision to exit both the office and his life was not a difficult one. I was calm. I was collected. I don't even remember crying. I went home, packing as much as I could and left, checking into the Tigerlily Hotel on George Street. Price was no object as I was using James' credit card anyway.

I started to make phone calls and plans. It seemed that everyone knew. His friends knew. His family knew. My colleagues knew. He had been sleeping with her since she had become his secretary, one short week after we were engaged and seven weeks before I moved to Scotland.

The following morning I spoke to the human resources department at the Bank and within a week I was transferred to the head office in Inverness. I changed my cell phone number, my personal email address, and toughened up. I had been cheated on and I would not let it happen again. My insides felt as if they'd been torn out of my body through my nose, slowly and painfully, inch by inch, my heart being squeezed until it ruptured, my very soul destroyed. And still no tears. After a week the pain subsided and my mother told me that perhaps I hadn't loved him, perhaps I was in love with the thought of being in love. To be honest, I neither know nor care. No person or thing would ever make me feel so worthless again. I would transform myself to become Ms. Isabella Swan – Bank-bot.

Within weeks of moving to Inverness my newfound toughness was noticed by one of the directors of the bank, Aro Volturi, and after a number of meetings, I became his troubleshooter. I dealt with the bank's more difficult clients and resolved their problems one way or the other in a timely and reasonable manner. I didn't make friends. I didn't form relationships. With the large paychecks I began receiving I bought beautiful shoes, expensive suits, European underwear and outrageous handbags. Only sports cars that went at least seventy miles per hour over the intended speed limit would now be suitable. I sent money home, saving for my future back in the States and still had plenty for a decent apartment in Inverness. I had it all, but I didn't trust anyone, and I wasn't anyone's friend.

Isabella Swan. Bank-bot.

When Aro sent me to Glen Glas, I was uneasy. I'd heard about _his_ reputation, but knew these things tended to be exaggerated.

As I disembarked from the boat I saw him, I mean really sawhim. His copper hair, sparkling emerald eyes that made my knees shake, hunched shoulders, and cocky half smile were somehow the sexiest things I had seen in my twenty seven years. The rumors hadn't done his looks justice. He wasn't just good looking, or sexy, or even gorgeous but utterly, totally, and completely beautiful. As I got closer to him, my skin started to tingle as if his fingers were caressing the entirety of my body simultaneously, each nerve feeling his gentle touch. A shudder ran down my back. He opened his mouth. He spoke. His accent was English with a touch of Scots thrown in for good measure. And it was damn sexy. At first.

But while his voice made me want to jump him and have him bang me hard and fast until I could no longer walk, his words made me want to string him up and throttle him, and not in a good way.

So, I did what I'd learned to do best. I became the Bank-bot. Non-human, non caring, just functioning.

Of course, because life never goes according to plan, that resolve lasted all of fifteen minutes, right up until I met his mother, who was the kindest person I'd ever met. She was sweet and quiet and gentle and cared from the start. I asked her to call me Bella. No one ever called me that anymore, except for my parents. She even made me dinner, the first meal cooked for me in years. It was just a sandwich, but to me it was a treat. A meal made for me by someone who wanted to make it, not just because they were being paid to. I felt myself warming up to her. I didn't want to like to her, but it was happening and I couldn't help myself. She was kind, and she didn't pry, though over lunch I found myself telling her things I'd not told anyone, things I kept hidden deep inside the darkest corners of my mind. Without much prompting I had told her everything. I told her about my parents, my life back in Forks, and about my failure of an engagement. The only thing I didn't tell her was that I thought that her youngest son was the hottest, sexiest man with whom I'd ever breathed the same air. I didn't tell her that, nor did I tell her that her youngest son was an ass.

Edward Cullen was acting like a jerk, which helped. I didn't want to like him in any way, shape, or form. To my own horror and against my better judgment, I found myself physically drawn to him. At the mere sight of him, shivers went down my spine and warmed my inner thighs. To be honest, who wouldn't be attracted to him? He was utterly and completely ethereal, the very picture of an angel on earth. His staggeringly green eyes pierced me through to my soul as their tint changed with his mood, and his remarkable mouth, which folded into a very strange but somehow hypnotizing crooked grin when he was amused, had me wanting his kiss. Currently, his amusement was apparently at my expense. He was tall, he was lean, and he was well built. My friends at home would call him buff. But, mentally I wasn't convinced he was all there. Mentally, I thought that perhaps he'd taken a blow to the head during his days in the army that hadn't been reported. Perhaps he'd always been slightly deficient and no one had ever noted it because he was just so physically stunning. He looked at me as though I were fresh meat. What a strange and creepy man. He opened his mouth and his thoughts rushed out like a stream of verbal vomit, the filter between his brain and his mouth did not function. What was scary about this condition was that he didn't seem to notice until it was too late. A lot of it was muttered, and though I couldn't say for sure, I was fairly convinced that much of what he said was inappropriate. It was somewhat worrying that that he didn't notice the inappropriate bits.

Was this a byproduct of post-traumatic stress disorder or was he just strange? I knew I shouldn't care, but I found myself wondering.

His nightmare was frightening. The screams that cascaded down the hallway to my bedroom, bounding off the walls like a flash-flood, had been heartbreaking. As I pulled myself out of my incredibly comfortable twin bed to see what was wrong, wrapping a worn patch-quilt around my nightgown, the words and screams that reached my ears had been blood curdling. In my sleep-enhanced panic I ran to his room to help him, to save him, to stop his pain. Of course, I'd known him for a full six hours, and as such, was not the ideal person to quell his anxiety. No wonder he was so angry when he saw me standing in the doorway watching him, unable to move, scared of doing the wrong thing, terrified of saying something which would make him lash out at me. He was thrashing around with his sheets and comforter tangled around his legs. Sweat poured off his forehead as he screamed like a wild banshee, his face twisted in mental anguish. He had obviously seen things I couldn't imagine, been part of a war that was impacting my life, but about which I knew nothing thanks to the stories spun by the politicians and newspapers. Whatever had happened was obviously awful, beyond my comprehension.

Reality dictated though, that whatever was wrong with him, whatever it was that was screwing his dreams up and making him irritable, impossible, and financially clumsy during the day, wasn't actually my problem. The fact he was possibly the most beautiful man I had ever seen, not including those on the movie screen, well, maybe including more than a few, didn't negate the fact that he was obviously a little strange, possibly a few cards short of a full deck, and definitely not a businessman; definitely economically inept. His refusal of help in the past, other than accepting loans against unworkable business plans, meant that as much as he wanted to run the business on his own, he was stuck with me until I decided on a way to save Glen Glas.

Ignoring whatever it was that made him call out my name in the shower, I put my mind on my work, hiking down the steep back stairs to the office and began to pull up the files referencing the land that Glen Glas owned and that Mr. Cullen did nothing with. Some of it was habitable, meaning it could be built on so long as it wasn't designated farm land. Re-designating ancient farm or croft lands was doable, but a pain in the ass because of paper work and timescales. Some of it was only suitable for grazing either cattle or sheep on. Some of it wasn't suitable for much of anything, too rugged for housing or buildings and too barren for grazing. It was only suitable for photo opportunities where gasping tourists could drive past and admire nature's gifts. Not exactly a money-making bonanza, but a possible draw if marketed correctly.

I wrote a brief report of my day, making notes in bullet points I could expand on later that week once I had seen more, been around more, become more familiar with the nature of day to day business. I called Angela to meet her for a drink and dinner at the pub on Wednesday, hoping to gain a little more information from her about Glen Glas. And about _him_.

I became more and more involved in my work. That night, a coach party arrived for a private tour and whiskey tasting. I followed the tour and became entranced with the stories Edward told about his family, about the house, with the warmth Esme bestowed upon strangers in her home, and the silent support Carlisle gave as he remained by her side, yet not in her way. I decided to head off to bed before the coach party had left, making sure I would have time to myself without having to make awkward conversation with Edward or spend anymore time with Esme. I didn't want to like her. I wanted to be on my own.

I heard him come up a few hours later. I heard him pause outside my door. I heard him mutter something unintelligible and then heard him walk away again.

The next day I pulled on less official clothing including a pair of tight dark blue slacks, a navy collared sweater, and soft sheepskin boots. I waited until I heard his shower start, ducked into the kitchen to get a cup of tea and headed downstairs to the office. I worked all morning only stopping to grab a sandwich from the kitchen at lunch time while he was in the pub with his friends, and returned to the office immediately after, staying until early evening. The paperwork was a mess and the accounts even worse. I'd just finished making out a list of things to do the following morning when Esme poked her head around the door at seven o'clock to offer me a glass of wine and a plate of food, as evidently she'd unintentionally cooked too much for herself and Carlisle. One plate of chicken and vegetables and two glasses of chardonnay later, I was full and yawning. After another glass of chardonnay, I was crawling my way up the back stairs to my room. I took a hot shower to counteract the cold air in the house and hunkered down into my bed with a book and my iPod playing quietly through some tiny speakers.

Again that night, I heard him come up the stairs and again he stopped outside my room. Again, he muttered something, and again he walked away.

The next morning, staying true to my newly adopted routine, I waited until Edward went in the shower before heading to the office. I would actively avoid him without being rude about it, and I would get on with my job. He would go to the post office every morning after the first boat arrived at the harbor and would bring back the post, giving me the bills, any bank correspondence, and copies of any bookings or business propositions. He would work at his desk, which was across from mine, and we would barely talk. At lunchtime each day, he would leave for the pub. Often that was the last I'd see of him. I would make lunch on my own, eat it in the company of the dogs, and then return to work. Esme would come through at about seven o'clock with either a glass of wine, a small glass of dry sherry, or if it was particularly wet and cold, a short glass of whiskey. She would then feed me, every day. Conversation was easy and gentle. I shared my progress with her, and she offered suggestions.

Each Wednesday evening I would go out with Angela. Our first outing together had been a little awkward, as we didn't know each other, and struggled to find common ground. About an hour in we discovered a mutual and rather embarrassing love of obscure nineteen eighties pop music and from there on our conversations just seemed to flow. I didn't pry into her deep and lasting knowledge of the Cullens, and she didn't offer information. Occasionally she would ask me how "that bugger Edward" was doing, but that was it. She was sweet and smart and very funny. Her husband Ben often picked us up from the Inn to take us back to Glen Glas when we were done, and he too seemed to be a nice guy. I'd never met a real shepherd before, having previously imagined them to look like something out of a child's picture book, all pink-faced and lined. Ben was small, shorter than his wife, with geeky, thick, round glasses, and a slight stammer. He offered to take me out to round up the sheep one day and I nervously accepted, my inability to stand up in muddy fields still a raw and slightly painful memory.

Each Friday, I would ring Aro to report on my progress. He seemed distracted each and every time I called, as if he didn't really care so long as I got back the money that was owed in the most efficient way possible. I started to pinpoint the business's weaknesses and strengths, and began to put a plan together with regards to the best way forward all concerned.

"Remember, Isabella," Aro drawled about four weeks after I arrived at Glen Glas, "Remember that it is a failing business. We are not in the business of supporting dying operations. You have until the end of April to make it right, whichever way is the most profitable to the bank with the least effort on your part."

Okay.

The problem was of course, that I had failed already. I was already fond of Esme and Carlisle and was growing attached to Angela. Even Mike, the vile man who ran the pub, wasn't so vile anymore. I had fallen in love with the hills and the water. The seemingly endless rain not longer seemed much of a bother. I had the little dogs sleep at the end of my bed and even missed Edward when he didn't come down to the office at the times I was expecting him. I'd made a fatal mistake and grown attached. Fuck.

To my amusement, somehow, I had apparently made an enemy of a girl who Angela informed me was named Jessica. Even so, each time I saw her I made the point to be polite and ask her to join us. She always snapped a refusal at me before draping herself all over Mike. Angela told me that they weren't together, but that was just how Jessica was. I found myself feeling almost sorry for her. She was a faded beauty, a girl who probably would have done better for herself if she'd moved away from the island; a girl who's pretty face was let down by the sadness in her eyes.

The Friday before Good Friday, April 3rd, I found myself sitting in the pub around evening time with Angela and Esme. Edward had been noticeable by his absence all day, and I hadn't seen Carlisle since he'd gone out to work, just after popping his head in the door of the office to say goodbye, as he had gotten into the habit of doing. Esme had come in with some homemade soup before I'd had the opportunity to go into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich.

"It's Ranald MacBride's funeral today," she explained while placing the mug of mushroom soup down on my desk. "All the men have gone. It's a big one. Mind you, whenever an Islander dies, they all troop along to show their respects. It's a real highland thing to do."

MacBride's name was familiar to me. I looked through the front of my master file, and then referenced the appropriate file with regards to who lived on Cullen land or on Glen Glas property. Yup, there he was, Ranald MacBride. He had a small croft up near Crannoch Dubh and a couple of acres of farmland that he used for grazing. Minimal rent. Widower. Kids left the island, one on Mull, the rest on the mainland.

Esme sat down in Edward's seat and looked sternly at me. "Don't you dare," she exclaimed. "Don't you bloody dare!" I looked at her over the top of my spectacles, and caught sight of her annoyed, yet almost frightened face.

"What do you mean?"

"Please just don't... I mean, not yet. Don't sell it. Wait for a wee bit, wait to see what happens."

"Esme," I began, not wanting to hurt the sweet woman sitting in front of me, but remembering the reason I was here, "I'll do what's right. I promise."

She nodded, slightly appeased, and I felt guilt for the first time in I don't know how long. What was right for Glen Glas and the Bank would not necessarily be what she thought was right.

Suddenly, I hated my job, really hated it. I didn't want to be the bad guy. I wanted to be the Lone Ranger, riding in to save the business, and then leave, riding off into the sunset, or in the case of Gallan, into dark clouds and solid curtains of rain.

"I'll leave you to it dear," she said as she got up. "I know you'll do what's right."

As she shut the office door, I flopped backwards against my chair. Everything pointed to Glen Glas being sold. I would probably have a clearer picture and report in the next two weeks. The high season started on Easter weekend which was just over a week away. There were a number of traditional Glen Glas festivities planned, as well as some obligatory appearances at the local church, thanks to Edward's position as Laird. Esme was planning away for all she was worth, running things past Edward and going with it even if the only response given was a grunt.

The day before, she brought in a pile of plans for him to approve. He'd grunted at them. "Edward," she sighed exasperated by his attitude. "If you're going to behave like a three year old then I'm going to treat you like one. Emmett, Jasper and the girls will be here next week. They'll help out, even if you're going to be silent and pigheaded. Alice is more than happy to oblige."

Edward sighed and humphed, grabbing the papers from her. "I'll look at them," he growled, "Alice can fuck off."

"Edward! For goodness sake, please don't swear." Esme was obviously fed up with her precious youngest son.

He put the papers to one side. "Sorry Mum." He turned to face her, cracking open his blindingly beautiful, crooked grin. She melted.

She left, happy that he might comply with her plans. He pushed the papers so that they straddled his and my desk, and then got on with whatever it was he was doing.

Angela and I sat in the far corner of the pub, at a table that was usually occupied by a group of local men, one of whom had been buried that afternoon. Mike was absent from the bar, also at the funeral and Jessica and another girl, Maeve I think, were serving pints with a lack of grace and customer service that would normally be frowned upon. Esme was at the bar, ordering our third round of white wine spritzers. We were drinking spritzers because the pub wine was so horrid, tasting a little like how I imagined paint thinner to taste.

"So, Alice and Jasper arrive Tuesday on the first ferry, and Emmett and Rose arrive on the last one that day," Angela was telling me. "I had an email from Alice yesterday. She's great fun, a real spark. Rose is okay once you get past her harsh exterior."

"She's not that bad, Ange," Esme admonished her. "She's just, well, a little shy, a little misunderstood." She placed our drinks in front of us, and turned around to fetch hers along with a plate of fries that Maeve had begrudgingly fried up for us.

"My daughters-in-law are both perfect foils for my sons," she explained as she sat down. "Jasper is serious, hard working and intense, where as Alice sees the fun in everything and is a joy to be around. I don't know of anyone who doesn't like Alice. Emmett comes across as a buffoon, but in a good way. He's a big lug who bumbles along. Don't get me wrong, all my children are bright and successful," she paused, then adding, "in their own way." She looked up and smiled at us. "Emmett just plays the fool. Rose keeps him on the straight and narrow, and they adore each other."

I nodded, trying to stay neutral with my opinions of Edward's siblings, knowing that they would probably be as welcoming as Edward had been and realized that even if I was not looking forward to their arrival, I should make an effort with them all, as we would be under the same roof for a week.

My pondering was interrupted by a noise emanating near the door to the pub. A loud noise. A Carlisle sounding noise.

He stood just inside the door, golden brown eyes flashing, pale skin flushed with rain dripping off his mac. Esme sighed and smiled in his direction. Angela looked over too. Ahh, I suddenly understood, the men were back from the funeral.

"Jessie my love, eight double Grouses, eight pints of Seventy Shilling and a drink each for our girls, please".

He walked towards us, and as he rounded the bar, removing his coat, I saw that he wore a kilt.

A kilt.

Shoot me now.

As was Ben.

And Mike.

As were four guys I recognized, but couldn't name, who walked in behind them.

Each kilt was different with each guy wearing his own tartan. Carlisle's grey and heather purple plaid was matched with a tweed jacket, a white shirt and a long black tie. Mike was dressed the same, except for the colors of his plaid, which were red and black with a yellow line through. Ben was dressed the same again, his kilt being dark green, black and blue; the Black Watch tartan of his old regiment.

They all looked gorgeous. Amazing. Who would have thought that men in skirts en mass could look so damn hot?

And then I saw him.

Bronze hair dripping with rain water, standing up all over the place as he repeatedly ran his long, long fingers through it. His emerald tinted eyes darted towards the bar and then back again towards us, then back to the bar, and then back to us. His hand never stopped scraping through his hair. He caught my eye and winked, and then walked around the corner, his hands now at his side.

I had never seen anything like it. His crumbled hair, his perfectly imperfect face, the polished loafers, his dark green knee length socks, his purple and grey kilt with its black leather bag hanging in front of his, err, bits, along with his slightly crinkled looking white shirt, his long black tie and his tweed jacket began to warm my bits.

Fuck me. Literally.

Angela giggled quietly and lent across to me. "Bella, love, I think you need to close your mouth. It's kind of gaping open." She laughed again.

I closed my mouth, feeling my teeth snap shut and my lips crash together and busied myself on my iPhone, pretending to check my email. I could feel my face reddening, my blood pressure going up, my heart pounding. God, what if everyone else could hear all that, see all that?

"Do you mind if I sit here?" a velvety voice whispered by my ear. God, he smelled wonderful, fantastic, other worldly; sea air, citrus, whiskey, grass, incense.

"What? Oh. Yes. Help yourself."

"Thanks, love," mumbled the voice, and as he sat his bare knee pressed up against my denim-covered knee, and tweed covered arms pressed against my blue silk shirt, my now slightly damp and clingy blue silk shirt.

This wasn't good. I'd spent the last four and a half weeks pretending that he was a troll and here he was making a total fool of me and my intentions.

"Are you okay, dear?" Esme asked, her hand covering mine across the table, her face concerned.

"Y..y..y..yesss," I stuttered, "Just a little hot. I think maybe I'm coming down with something. I think I'll go back up to the house if that's okay?"

"Yes, of course dear. The staff should still be there getting ready for next week. The alarms won't be on. Are you sure you're okay? I could come with you."

"Yes. Yes, I'll be fine. You stay here; I'll see you in the morning." I stood up, stooped to give Angela a kiss on the cheek and lent across to Esme to do the same.

As I straightened up, I felt a warm hand press on the base of my spine, and an inexplicable buzz run through my entire body.

"I'll run you home, Isabella Swan. It's too wet and dark out there for you to be walking back on your own."

I began to protest.

"See, Edward," Esme smiled at her son, "I knew that somewhere along the line your upbringing would shine through." She grinned at him. At the bar Jessica coughed up her drink all over two other kilted men, who both swore at her.

Edward rolled his eyes. "C'mon, let's go."

I followed him out of the pub and into the jeep. We sat in silence as we drove along the lumpy, foresty side road to the house. He pulled up by the main doors as he had the first night and wouldn't let me get out until the front door was open. Shielding me from the rain, he hurried me up the stone stairs and into the dry house. He walked ahead of me all the way up to the apartment flicking on lights as he went, his kilt swishing with each step, and then let me in into the apartment.

He walked me to my room.

We were still totally silent.

He opened my door.

I stood still.

He lent down.

My eyes met his. Neither of us blinked.

Our faces were so close that our breath mingled.

He lent in further.

I breathed in.

He kissed me on the cheek gently.

I breathed out.

He stepped back, just a half step, his eyes still fixed on mine.

He put a hand on each of my arms, carefully turning me around and pushed me inside, flicking on the rooms main light by way of the switch just inside the door.

"Good night Isabella Swan. Sweet dreams."

The door shut behind me as I staggered in.

I changed in silence, finding that some layers of clothes needed to be peeled from my skin. My mind raced.

I went through my nightly routine in silence.

I climbed into bed, wrapping the quilt around me, and fell asleep almost immediately, my hand resting on the cheek were his lips had touched my skin.

_That_ was the first night I dreamt of Edward Cullen

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**Thank you for reviewing and messaging me. If you have time, please do review this chapter. Chapter six to follow soon.**


	7. Chapter 6

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my very lovely and patient betas. **

**Here's the rejig of Chapter Six. I have Chapter Seven nestling quietly in my inbox and you should get that in the next day or so. As always – sorry for the delay – we are working as fast as we can :)**

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the places. Official disclaimer is own my profile page and on my website (link is on my profile page)**

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Fuck.

I kissed her.

Well, I kissed her cheek. But it was still her. She tasted like face powder and flowers and whiskey and wine and rain and strawberries and sugar. Her skin was so soft, like the finest silk, her hair smelled softly of red roses.

Fuck.

I wanted her so badly.

So fucking badly.

I was so whipped.

Fuck.

I watched her every day as she worked to destroy me. I watched her grow closer to my mother. I watched them as they ate together every night, as I walked by my mother's kitchen window, off to eat alone at the Inn or head back inside so that I could eat alone upstairs in my kitchen. I watched her go out with, and become close to, Angela. I listened to Mike as he listed things he would like to do to her. I listened to Ben as I made him repeat all the things she had told Ange. I'd given up being subtle with Ben about it. He and I went way back. We'd grown up together. I'd gone to University; he'd joined the Black Watch. I'd joined the Black Watch, he'd been my sergeant. We'd been to Iraq together, Afghanistan together. He'd missed that terrible day, the day that kept reappearing in my dreams, having been shot in the shoulder and hospitalized just days before. He was sent home almost immediately and was back in Glen Glas long before I was. We had seen things together that no man should see, and we were close… ish; as close as I was to anyone.

I leaned back against the wall next to her bedroom door, raising my arms crucifix style to shoulder height, palms flat against the painted surface and fingers splayed, willing my cock to deflate just a little so I could walk into the kitchen to retrieve a large whiskey without hobbling or staggering. After a minute, I was still granite hard, and my desire for a whiskey was being overtaken by an uncontrollable desire for yet another wank.

For God's sake.

This was getting stupid. Every night I dreamed of her, and every morning, even if I'd not had pornographic dreams, I awoke with my pajama bottoms and bedcovers slightly aloft thanks to my hard on. Each night, slightly buoyed by my late night whiskey that accompanied the dogs and I on our final trip to the garden, I walked by her room, trying to think of any excuse to knock on her door, anything would do. Could I bring her clean towels; did she need any work related papers; was she warm enough?

What an arse.

I never knocked. I just stopped for a second, breathed in the air, shut my eyes and wondered what she was doing. I noted what music was creeping out from under her door and whether the light was shining through, and then took my imagination to bed with me.

Stalkerish? Oh yes, indeedy.

And, since when did I start uttering fuckery like indeedy?

Fuck.

I peeled myself away from the wall, pulling the knot of my funeral tie away from the collar of my shirt, undid the top button and shambled into the kitchen. All five dogs fucking bounced around my legs, anticipating a trip outside into the cold, dark, wet night within minutes.

I opened the cupboard above the sink to pull out a glass and a bottle and moved over to the window seat so theoretically I could look out over the village. Given that it was currently pitch black out and I'd have no view, I settled for just pouring a huge whisky. Holding it up to the light, I watched as the facets in the glass sparkled as the amber liquid swirled around the glass. I frowned to myself, deciding I hadn't poured enough and topped it off, the honey colored liquid sloshing around the sides of the tumbler, filling it so the vessel was less than half empty.

I put the bottle on the drainer and sat down, hard, the cushion saving my arse from pain, but not the wood underneath it, which creaked and croaked as I slammed down. My sporran slipped to the side, and immediately Trevor jumped up onto my lap. He landed with a thud, making my entire body contract into a seated fetal position and effectively squashing what was left of my Isabella induced hard on.

I pushed him off, back into the huddle of dogs, and en mass they headed to their beds in the corner of the room. The dogs curled up together near the open fire knowing that their time would come soon. I leaned back, stretching out slightly and looked out of the window. Moving one leg up onto the bench, I bent it slightly so I could rest the glass of whiskey on my knee. Staring into the darkness I saw nothing but the warning light from the automatic lighthouse a mile out to sea. I took a long swig.

The whiskey pulsed through my veins, warming up my cold soul as it travelled quickly through my body. I had consumed two large ones at the wake, and had downed the one Carlisle had bought me at the pub, along with half a pint of beer. There was no way I should've driven Bella home, but I'd wanted to. Just being in her presence had made me feel sober. Calm. Relaxed. Composed. Untroubled. At peace.

Happy.

The flash from the lighthouse lit up the garden momentarily, highlighting the paths and walls and trees for a mere moment, before moving on to the beach, the rocks and the sea.

She was my light. The light in my darkness.

How fucking clichéd was that? Bloody whiskey.

I knocked the contents of the glass back, enjoying the sudden, intense burn, and stood up, whistling softly. Five furry figures stood as if they hadn't been sleeping at all, the canine huffs and puffs which had filled the room just seconds before were just a front for their ever alert ears; ever alert, for things they wanted though equally capable of ignoring me if they decided it was better for them. They rallied around my feet, paws and uncut nails scratching and sliding on the yellow linoleum floor, five hopeful faces looking up at me. Why my mother had insisted I choose yellow lino was beyond me; something about wanting me to have some_ "sunshine in your life, dear." _Huh?

I put the glass and the bottle down. And then, picked up the bottle again and took a swig, clinging to it as if my life depended on it. My little wolf pack then led me out of the kitchen, down the back stairs and into the ink-black night.

The garden was almost completely unlit, bar a slither of light gliding gently down through the rain from the upstairs kitchen window. Clouds obscured the moon and stars. My mother's annex was dark with the blinds and curtains still open. She and Carlisle were probably still be in the pub. I took another a swig straight from the bottle and sat on the cold, damp, step, thankful for the thick material of my kilt. The wind breezed around the garden causing me to pull my knees together slightly, somehow managing to get under said thick material. I shivered, and took another swig, swinging my body around so my position mirrored the one I had taken in the kitchen just earlier. Taking advantage of the pale hall lights behind me, the faint light filtering down from upstairs, and the intermittent light from the lighthouse that just managed to dimly illuminate the garden over the hedges and walls, I held the bottle up to gauge my consumption. About five fingers worth. An early morning dog-walking hangover was going to be mine, whether I liked it or not. I sighed, and took another swig. Five and a half fingers? Six? I didn't care.

The dogs were running around the garden, enjoying the freedom; the boys cocking their legs every couple of seconds and the girls running from one smell to the next. I put my head back against the cold carved stone doorframe, watching their movements as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Occasionally one of them would run through the light from the kitchen window, disturbing the lines that the casing frames made. Another gulp of whiskey. My mind started to wonder as the wind changed direction and heavy drops of rain bounced off my head, my chest, my kilt, my shoes. I thought of her. Of Bella. I didn't understand what it was about her, why I wanted her so badly. My dick started to move again. The fact that just thinking of her, not even really picturing her could make me hard was a worrying sign.

I thought back to the other girls, the ones who had meant something. Lindsey, the generous fellator who gave me my first blowjob at University, and my date to the May Ball after I had decided against inviting Jessica, for fear she'd discover the reputation I'd been building for myself amongst the women of the university. Blond hair, big tits, gave fantastic head; a bit serious, now a social worker in London. She realized I was a lost cause and that I wasn't going to settle down as a 'one woman' man anytime soon, if ever. By a bizarre quirk of fate, she and Alice knew each other through mutual friends, and kept each other abreast, ahem, of their respective lives. Then there was the lovely Dinah, who now ran the shop for Esme and I during the summer season, and who baked the best scones in the history of baking. Blond again, so sweet to look at, so tough on the inside. Wouldn't put up with my crap, kicked me in the nuts one night after catching me with Jessica when I'd said I was on the mainland. A month later we were great friends, and she was now married to a guy from the neighboring island of Mull who was the local joiner. They produced a couple of sons and now ran their bed and breakfast, which was award winning and therefore busy pretty much all year round. How she managed that and the shop, plus stints in the pub was beyond me, but manage it she did. Of course there was Jessica, who I treated so badly, repeatedly abusing her feelings for me over the years, encouraging her when I wanted to, ignoring her at other times. I should have just left her to Mike. If I was a good person, that's what I would have done. But, it seemed, I wasn't a good person. I was probably better off on my own.

But for the first time in my sordid history, certainly since before I joined the army, I didn't want to be on my own. I wanted her. I silently berated my dick for moving, again, of its own free will. "You'll scrape yourself on the prickly plaid," I warned it out loud, talking to it as if it was a simple adult. It took absolutely no notice of my warning.

Through the rain, that was starting to become more like a solid downpour again, I could hear the sound of car wheels being driven slightly too fast down the drive. The last thing I wanted was to see Esme and Carlisle right now. I pulled myself up, wobbling slightly, and whistled for the dogs who came immediately, evidently fed up with the weather. I headed in through the back door as I heard the car stop in the car port, and ran up the stairs as quickly as my not very sober feet would carry me. The journey was made all the more difficult by both the hard on and the presence of the dogs around my feet, each jostling for position as they unofficially raced me towards the warmth of the kitchen.

I reached the flat door slightly of breath, and let the six of us in, allowing the door to slam behind me. Just before it slammed I heard a door along the corridor click shut.

Shit.

She'd been up and I'd missed her. I looked in the direction of the room, and in a rare moment of clarity, decided that following her would be a bad, bad, bad, idea, even if my cock thought otherwise, and was now in fact straining in her general direction like a homing missile, and headed into the kitchen with the intention of putting the bottle back in the cupboard.

I stopped. There was an empty mug on the drainer. I glanced at the wall clock and saw I'd been down there twenty five minutes. Long enough for her to come in here, make tea, drink it and leave again.

And I fucking missed her.

I poured some whiskey into her teacup, and drank from where I hoped her lips had been.

Stalker- ish. No.

Stalker- much. Yes.

I woke on Saturday morning with a mammoth hangover, still in my white shirt, though looking down, saw that I must have discarded my kilt at some point. Three dogs were on the bed. At least I'd had the sense to take some water with me before I'd gone to sleep. For once, the sun was coming in through my windows. Fuck the sun. The sun, if it was going to make an appearance at all, generally popped up as I was wondering through the dew, allowing the dogs to burn the lawn with their wee.

I rolled over and grabbed the mug, sitting slightly as I raised it to my lips and took a sip before registering what I was doing.

Fuck.

I splattered out the sour taste of whiskey, hitting my bedside table, splashing the crappy detective novel on it and covering my alarm clock, which that morning was no longer my friend, with the wood hued liquid. I stuck out my tongue and wiped it on my shirt sleeve attempting to rid it of both yesterday's stale whiskey and this morning's not so stale whiskey.

Whiskey at what, eight o'clock in the morning? You'd have thought the smell would have given it away. Even for me that was bad, unless of course, I was still going from the night before. Not that I had the stamina to do that anymore. Twelve hour drinking sessions were a thing of the past, but even so, the thought and potential intent were there.

I slammed the mug back down and pulled my weary body from the bed. Once upright, my head didn't pound as much as I thought it might, and I peeled off my shirt and pulled on a pair of jeans along with the obligatory, ratty, Glen Glas sweatshirt.

I shambled into my bathroom, pee'd, and gargled with some mouth wash just in case I ran into anyone. Into her, wishing my dick would go away.

The three dogs followed me down the hall, and as we neared Bella's room, Fi's tiny nose appeared, mousing the door open, and she danced out closely followed by Sula. Bloody animals had apparently slept in with her. They both jumped up at me, and I bent down to pat them, finding as I got closer that they both smelled very faintly of roses. They'd been on her bed or on her clothes over night.

Well, that just wasn't fair.

I stomped down the rest of the hallway, and with the dogs behind me again, down the stairs to the garden. Ten minutes later I was back up in the kitchen, getting toast and coffee, back to my bathroom for my shower and morning wank. Once I was back to the bedroom, I got dressed in something less grimey, and then headed off to Crannoch Dubh for another landowners meeting.

I returned at lunch time by way of the Inn. As I entered to pick up my takeaway pizza, Mike was on the phone and Sally was serving beer to a small group of backpackers, wooly hat and welly wearing German tourists.

"That's great," he was saying, smiling widely into the phone handset, "see you on Wednesday about seven-thirty." A pause. "Yeah, thanks." Oh, he's using his 'cool' voice, "I'm looking forward to it too."

He put the phone back into the holder on the shelf at the back of bar, underneath the sprits and in front of the mirror, and smiled at me.

"Cullen. Your pizza's ready." He motioned with his head to the far end of the bar, where a generic cardboard pizza box was sitting.

"You got a date, Michael?" I asked him as I moved down the bar to get the box that contained my lunch.

"Might have," he answered, as if it was a big mystery. I wasn't going to play the game with him and didn't actually care. I had kind of hoped that he and Jess would finally get together, but she was now seeing one of the guys from The Boat on a fairly regular basis and Mike was waiting around for that to run its course so he could make his move; the move he'd been planning on making for years and years.

I changed my tack. "You still up for the game next Saturday?" I asked.

"Yeah, of course." He gave me a look that insinuated I was an idiot. "I've played every year since I was fifteen."

"Jasper and Emmett will be here for it."

"Like every year, Cullen, like every year."

"Well, this year, we're going to kick your arses!"

Sally looked up from the magazine she had been flicking through, the tourists now safely ensconced in their seats, beer in glasses, lunches ordered. She looked at me, looked at Mike, rolled her eyes, shook her head, and went back to the land of celebrity interviews.

"Don't think so, Cullen. You've not won since you took over at the house, what makes you think that you'll do any better this year?"

He stood up straight and looked me in the eye, something he would have been unable to do had he not been behind the slightly raised bar.

"This is our year, Newton, our year!" I said, puffing out my chest, laughing slightly, but in a this-isn't-funny, this-is-fact- and -we're-going-to-do-it-this-year, sort of way.

Fuck, we were posturing, peacocking; over a bloody rugger match that without a doubt, the 'House' team would lose. Again.

He laughed at me. Or with me. I couldn't tell which. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He laughed again. "Dream your dreams, Cullen."

I turned around to leave with the pizza box flat on my palms, the warm grease from the cheese run-off starting to soak my fingers. I was half amused by this conversation and half pissed off. We had to win, and chances are we wouldn't. I hated the annual rugby match and ceilidh, but they were both a good way of giving back to the community before the tourist season officially started. Isabella was going to freak when she saw how expensive the ceilidh was to put on each year - the locals and farm workers sure could drink vast quantities when the mood took them, and the mood really took them if I was paying.

"See you tomorrow for lunch Mike," I yelled as I left. "Jacob and Leah are coming across again, so a table for three, my good man!"

"The roast tomorrow is beef," Mike yelled back. "One of yours Edward, I believe."

The thing about farming cattle and sheep was that you had to eat them, or at least, some of them. So we sold our meat, our beef and lamb, to the pubs and restaurants around Glen Glas. In the end eating roast beef at Mike's was akin to paying myself to eat my own beef. Oh well. It seemed to work. Kind of.

When I got back to the house, I found my mother and Isabella sitting on a couple of lounge chairs in the private garden, drinking coffee and taking in the sun, which was still shining against all odds and predictions.

They both smiled at me as I approached, my mother's smile wide and welcoming, Isabella's a little strained, her eyes bright yet concerned.

"Hello darling," my mother sang at me as I reached them. "Bella and I were just going through the plans for next weekend. She seems to think we may have a small problem with paying for the ceilidh."

Isabella sat up straight, crossing her ankles, making her seem more efficient, more official. She put her coffee cup on the ground next to her sun-chair, and rested her hands on her jean-clad thighs, her breasts pushing slightly together thanks to the position of her arms, creating a cleavage that peaked out from her blue shirt.

My dick decided that it had been docile for too long at that point, prompting it to take a stand. I moved the pizza box down slightly, and shifted my position.

"It seems," she started, squinting slightly at me as I stood in front of the sun, "that there aren't sufficient funds in place to cover the cost of the party."

What the fuck?

"What the fuck?"

Esme scowled at me. "Edward," she smiled through obviously gritted teeth. "Bella is trying to help us here. Swearing at her _isn't_ going to help."

"Help us my arse," I scowled back, ignoring Isabella for a second. "We always pay for the bar and the band. Always. It's our thing. We can't just announce, a week before the party that we're not paying." I hardly ever raised my voice to my mother, and her face clearly showed her dismay at me doing it now, and in company.

Isabella coughed, regaining my attention. "I think a pay bar could be in order. I've spoken to Mike Newton about sale and return, and he'd only charge you cost, so you could either pass on that saving, or charge a little more and scrape the profit off, which in turn could pay for the band. Economics isn't that difficult, Mr. Cullen. Not even for you".

Fuck off.

Esme regained her composure slightly. "You're lucky dear. I nearly cancelled the ceilidh band and that would have meant that you, Emmett, Jasper and Mike would have had to do it. Be thankful that that's not the case. I know I am".

I must have registered shock. Isabella relaxed a little and laughed. "They can't be that bad?" she asked Esme.

"No, they're really very good, and each year they play one number. But with the amount they drink at this thing, it would have been over by nine thirty if they'd been responsible for music the entire night; all of them too drunk to play. You know dear, that happened one year. Edward was just nineteen, and he and the boys had been drinking since the match finished at four. They went on to do their one number at nine thirty and all of them were so drunk, Edward threw u-"

"MOTHER!"

"…up, all over Jessica's new shoes." She stopped, glad to have got the story out. Well, half the story. Thankfully she left out the bit about Jessica hitting me with said new shoes and me not actually noticing the bleeding and bruising from the pointy heals until the next morning when the minister at Church asked me if someone had stood on my neck with their rugby boots during the previous day's match.

I left.

I went into the house, up to the kitchen, ate two slices of my now cold and gooey pizza, and then threw the rest in the bin. I went back down to the office, where Isabella and my mother had come in from the garden to look at papers together.

They both looked up as I entered, my mother continuing with what she was saying.

"Give these to Alice when she arrives. Yes, Edward, what can we do for you?"

"Nothing." I left again, driven from my own home by disgusting congealing pizza and the hottest woman on the plant, and my mother. I jogged down the drive and up to see Ben, to find out how the sheep where coming along and to garner the approximate timings that the lambing would start.

The rest of that day followed our usual patterns of routine avoidance and minimal speaking. On Sunday morning, I watched as Isabella left with Esme and Carlisle to go to Church. I was still at the window when they returned an hour later, Isabella going into Esme's annex, Fi and Sula at her heels. Jacob and Leah and I met for lunch, and after eating far too much, returned with them on the ferry to the mainland where I wondered the shops looking to buy Easter eggs for the annual hunt. It was the only thing I had to actually physically do. Alice and Esme had told me that if I bought them, then they could tell the kids that I had bought them and it wouldn't be a lie. That could be my contribution. One trip to the supermarket later and I had 200 hundred tiny eggs, 50 larger cream eggs, bags of sweets and candy, an egg each for my sisters-in-law, one for Esme, one each for my brothers and one for Carlisle. And one for Isabella. It seemed that she was planning to stay over the holiday, wanting to see first hand how the first couple of days the house was open for the season went. Esme had told me, in no uncertain terms, that I had to make her feel welcome.

I wanted to make her feel welcome. I wanted to fuck her brains out as long as my cock would stay hard and in as many ways as I could think of. But what I really felt was an overwhelming need to make those sad eyes smile. More honestly, I wanted to make them laugh; with me, not at me. I wanted to run my fingers through her hair to see how it felt, from root to ends, to place her cheek in my hand and stoke my thumb along her lips. I wanted to wrap her up in my arms, tuck her head under mine and make her safe. I wanted to go to sleep with her, curled up into me and wake up with her still there the following morning. The last thing had shocked me more than anything. I never stayed with anyone over night. Mornings were my time for peace and quiet, to do everything in my own time. But for some reason, best known to the inner workings of both my mind and newly independent thinking cock, I wanted her to be there when I woke up.

Of course, because I was such a fuck-up, none of these things would or could happen, and as such, I was going to bury those thoughts in that little compartment of my mind where I hid things.

Problem was that they wouldn't stay locked away. I wanted her in every way possible, in every sense of the word 'want,' and I didn't know how to do it without fucking it up.

Fuck.

At nine forty-five on the Wednesday morning I was sitting at my desk, pretending to read the local newspaper whilst actually, repeatedly glancing up at Isabella while she worked on her computer. Without notice, the door to the office flew open and a whirlwind spun into the room, throwing itself at me, its arms around my neck and its body encamped suddenly on my lap.

Best hard-on remover ever.

"Hi, Alice," I laughed when I could breathe again, her tight grip loosening slightly around my windpipe.

"Hi, Edward," she mimicked my tone perfectly, giggling afterwards.

Isabella was watching, her computer forgotten, a smile creeping across her face.

Oh, Fuck. Better introduce them.

"Oh fuck. Better introduce them. Um, Alice, this is Isabella Swan, from the bank, Ms. Swan, this is Alice Cullen, my sister-in-law."

Alice jumped off my lap and bent across the table to shake Isabella's outstretched hand.

"Bella! Fabulous to meet you. Esme's told me all about you." She turned and gave me the strangest smile, and then looked back at Isabella, her face pure glee again. "I know you're supposed to be working, but let's go and get some coffee with Esme so you can tell me all about your plans for the old place. Then we can go over what's happening this weekend."

Isabella raised an eyebrow at me, and stood up. "Sounds great Alice, lead the way."

As Alice shut the door, I sat back hard against my chair. I could feel irritation and disappointment running through my body. That would be the last time for a week I would have Isabella to myself. And it was over. Fucking Alice.

"What do you mean, 'Fucking Alice'?'" a voice from the doorway asked.

My brother.

Jasper was more like a calm summer's breeze in comparison to Alice's full-blown tornado.

He smiled at me, "Hey, little brother. My wife getting to you already?"

"Yes, no, what? Hi."

He grinned at me and moved to sit down in the chair Isabella had just vacated. I scowled slightly. That was her chair. Oh, for God's sake, get a grip. He leaned back, tipped the chair slightly and rested his feet on the corner of the desk. I scowled again. Excellent Edward. That's right. Give yourself away to one of the two people who know you best in the world.

"Given what away, Edward? I see that you've still not got your filter sorted yet." He laughed.

"Nothing. Does Mum know you're here yet?"

"Yes of course. I looked in on her first, took the bags upstairs, and only now do you realize that we're here. You knew we were on the first ferry."

"Sorry, Jas, I should have been there to meet you. Sorry. Things are all a bit chaotic here." I sat back and proceeded to tell him all about the situation, in great detail, from the moment he left after New Year's up until the conversation the previous day regarding the bar at the ceilidh. The bits about how she made me feel, how she should have been mine but I didn't deserve her, how I didn't need anyone, never made it into the story.

"Do you think the lambs will make an appearance while we're here this year?" Jasper asked.

"What the fuck? I've just told you that the family business is going to be sold to the highest bidder, probably that bloke who owns Harrods, and all you can do is ask me about the fucking lambs? What's your name? Alice?"

"Just because you've fucked it up here, don't go making digs at my wife," Jasper warned me.

"Yeah, I'm, you know, I didn't mean it," I mumbled, suddenly ashamed. "It's just that I don't see how we can turn this around. She's only here for another week or so, and that's it. I don't know how to impress her, to make her want to save Glen Glas with me."

I put my head in my hands. "Jasper. I don't want to fuck this up. And I have."

He ran his hands through his blond hair. He was the son that made everyone who didn't know us think Carlisle was our father. Cullen family similarities ran deep and they had the same blond locks. He was obviously Ted's son, but his similarity to Carlisle would remind me, remind all of us, that it was Carlisle my mother had loved first, and loved last, even if she had loved Ted in the middle bit.

"And the girl?" he asked. "Bella? What does she have to say, has she told you this is the case?"

"Not in so many words."

"Well then, just wait until she's done her job and then see what she says."

I looked at him and he looked at me. We both smiled.

"So," he started. "Have you done her yet?"

"What the fuck? No! Fuck's sake, Jasper, what do you take me for?" I started to defend myself, my voice getting louder, my face burning. Idiot. Let's just give the game away by reacting like a teenager caught wanking.

"I know you, Edward Cullen. She's beautiful and bright. And she's single. Esme has been talking to Alice, you know. Thinks that you'd be great together if you could get over yourself."

"No. Fuck. NO!"

"Okay. Whatever. Shall we go look at the farm? On the way, you can tell me about the changes you're going to propose to Bella before she leaves, so that she knows you're serious about this place."

I sighed. "C'mon then. Let's go. We can examine the ewes and see how close they are. Ben should be in the top field with the pregnant ones."

Thanks to Jasper and his planning, and Alice and her planning, and Esme and her planning, my planning was screwed and consequently, I was late to meet Emmett and Rose at the boat. I had spent all day with Jasper and Alice had been with Isabella and my mother. We had all met briefly for some soup at six o'clock in the annex and then Alice and Isabella had gone upstairs and Esme and Carlisle had gone off to play bridge with the people in the castle across the bay. That left Jasper and I to go through the plans for the next few days. As always, my plans revolved around an early morning run, food, drink, and sleep. His revolved around an early morning run, healthy food, no drink until after the match on Saturday, and his in-depth scheme with regards to how we would win the rugby match. He had it all worked out in his head, and he took one of the white boards that were used on the rare occasion we had a full staff meeting, and started drawing tactical plans for the game. You would have thought we were going to war.

And so, I received a text from Emmett ten minutes after I should have been at the ferry terminal.

_You're late. Rose pissed w/u. Pub. Bought u a pint: Newton has hot date, come check her out. Em_

"Shit. Jasper, we forgot Emmett and Rose."

We ran to my car, not the jeep, but the Volvo I kept clean and Rose used when she was here. Emmett would happily spend many hours at the Inn, but to piss Rosalie off this early into her holiday would be a huge mistake. Jasper rang Alice as soon as we started moving.

"Ali. Hi, lovely. Sorry. We were late to get Rose and Emmett so they're now in the pub. We're heading down there to pick them up. I'm going as moral support so that Rose doesn't remove Edward's nuts with her talons. Also, evidently Newton has a hot date." He paused. "Oh. Really?" Another pause. "Okay. This should be entertaining." Pause. "I'll call you when we're heading back. Love you." He pressed the appropriate button on his phone, and grinned at me.

"Alice has dinner ready for them. We just need to call her when we're heading back."

He kept grinning all the way along the main road, the ten minute drive taking seven in my hurry. I turned the CD player on, Runrig filling the car, Gaelic words swirling around our heads.

We pulled up right outside the pub's main door and legged it in. Rosalie and Emmett were standing together just inside the inner doors, both smiling. Not the reaction I expected from Rose. She came up and hugged me, and then hugged Jasper. Emmett slapped me on the shoulder.

"Edward, little man. Fucking great to see you!" His usually loud voice appeared to be booming off the walls, filling the busy pub. Dinah and Sal were behind the bar, both looking at me and Emmett, and then away again. Repeatedly.

"Pint's on the bar little brother, one for you as well Jas". He and Rose moved back to let us past. I smiled at Dinah and Sal, took a sip of my bitter and turned my back on them to survey the pub, looking to see if there was a table we could use.

And then I saw her.

With Mike Fucking Newton.

_She_ was his date.

Isabella was dressed in a pale blue and dark blue silky dress thing that finished way above her knees. Her legs seemed to go on for miles. She had on high heeled shoes. Her hair was down her back, wavy and shiny. She was wearing makeup. Not a lot, like Jessica tended to do, but just a little, enhancing her amazing face.

She was laughing at something he said.

She looked incredible. Beautiful. Too good for us, for our pub, for our island.

Perfect in an imperfect setting.

I looked to my brothers only to see that they were watching me, both staring intently as if witnessing some phenomenon.

I looked back at Isabella as she leaned forward to hear something Mike was saying to her. He looked up for a moment, the fool, taking his eyes off of her and caught my eye. He smiled and gave a small wave. She looked up. She saw me. She didn't smile. She looked back at him, and then smiled.

My chest suddenly felt empty, my head hurt and my ears started to ring. I felt as if I had been punched in the gut persistently for hours on end, each blow reaching my soul, destroying whatever the war had left of it.

"Shouldn't you be working, Newton?" I growled, my tone low, my voice steady.

"Day off, not that it's any of your business." He looked at me, his chin sticking out defiantly as he moved his stool over towards Bella's very slightly. She smiled at him again and then looked at me, equally defiantly.

The pub seemed almost silent as I responded in my eloquent best, "Yeah, right. Whatever."

I downed my pint, hearing the gulping noise pound in my ears, wondering for a moment if everyone around could hear that too, along with the sound of my world crumbling around me.

"C'mon. Alice is waiting."

Emmett handed Rose a fifty pound note.

"Told you," she grinned at him adding, "Alice and I are always right about these things."

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**I'm back at home in Scotland for a few weeks. It's wonderful. :) **

**Please review if you haven't already.**


	8. Chapter 7

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my superb betas.**

**Here's the rejig of Chapter Seven. I have Chapter Eight banging around in my inbox and you should get that within the week - it's a long one and I'm thinking about splitting it in two. As always – sorry for the delay – we are working as fast as we can :)**

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the places. Official disclaimer is own my profile page and on my website (link is on my profile page)**

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By the time we got back to the house, I was feeling beyond apoplectic. Emmett and Rose had climbed into the backseat of the car, Emmett as always complaining about the lack of room. Jasper sat himself down in the driver's seat, obviously not intending to let me behind the wheel of my own car. My black mood occupied every spare square inch of the car that wasn't filled with either Cullen flesh or Rosalie Cullen related luggage.

Shit, Rose - who needs four suitcases for a week-long holiday?

"Four suitcases, Rose? How long are you staying?"

"Don't snap at me Edward. We're here for a week, long enough for me to kick your arse into shape and see what the hottie from the bank has to say."

I coughed and sputtered, "Bank hottie? What the hell, Rose?"

She laughed. "Oh Edward. Edward. Edward." Sitting directly behind me, she had full access to my head and just because she could, ruffled my hair condescendingly, as if I were a petulant child she was placating.

"Don't touch the hair, _Rosalie."_

"Don't be an idiot, _Edward_. You Fuckwit."

"Bitch!"

"Hermaphrodite!"

Emmett and Jasper burst into laughter.

"Cow… OW!"

Emmett smacked me across the back of the head, hard.

"Fuck off Em. What is this, national screw with Edward day?"

"Leave off my wife little brother. Just because Newton has apparently managed to land that hot little number before you did doesn't mean you can take it out on Rose. Or Alice. Or us."

"Em, darling," Rose crooned as we bumped down the driveway, "that hot little number, as you so eloquently described her, is the banker. You know; _the_ banker."

"What? Fuck!" he exploded. I could hear the mirth, bloody mirth, which was obviously splattered across his face. "Bloody hell! Edward, you must be losing your touch if you can't land her. She's staying in the house with you. Fuck, that's funny!"

We pulled up into the car port. Esme and Alice were waiting there; Alice with a tray of filled champagne glasses in her hands.

"Don't let the great legs and perfect tits fool you. The number of the beast is tattooed on her skull," I muttered, climbing out and grabbing a glass for myself. Esme grabbed it back and passed it to Rose who was now out, standing next to her mother-in-law.

"Edward, you can take the cases in with Jasper and Emmett before you get champagne. Oh, hello love," she kissed Emmett on both cheeks as he picked her up. "Welcome home."

I removed the cases from the boot of the car and grabbed one, indicating to Jasper and Emmett to help out. They took one each, hand-luggage under an arm and a glass of fizz in their free hand. I sighed and picked up the final bag. Fuck Isabella Swan. If she wanted a loser like Mike Newton, good luck to her. I started to push her deep into the compartment of my head where my bizarre fixation with her belonged.

"C'mon Eddie, get a move on, you're moving too fucking slow in front," Emmett said, his tone teasing.

"Emmett, _please," _scolded Esme, "You're not on the rugby pitch yet."

"It's your bloody wife's luggage. Anyone would think you were staying for a month," I retorted, talking at him over my shoulder.

"A month? With you? Oh God no. Please, just the thought makes me break out in spots and welts," Rose piped up.

I loved this. My family. I was not on my own, not at this moment, and it didn't feel too bad. We teased one another, but it was all, mostly, out of love.

"Pack- horse," Alice taunted from just behind me as we reached the back stairs, our little caravan ready to move on up for dinner, drinks and general catching up.

I took a couple of quicker steps to keep just ahead of her.

"Fuck off, _Tinkerbell_." I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, away from her, before she could hit me.

"Edward, _please,_" Esme yelled, knowing that fighting against swearing was a losing battle with both Emmett and I.

As I fled, Rose's cases were ricocheting off the stone walls on one side and the wooden banister on the other. I could hear the surprisingly loud thump, thump, thump of Alice's feet as she bounded up the stairs behind me, but her voice carried up the stairs faster than her feet could carry her body. She was yelling, the words echoing off the walls, making the dogs bark.

"I am NOT a pixie. I do not dance everywhere. I do not flutter from place to place. I think about more than having perfect hair and nails. I do not live to shop. I do not have a squeaky voice, I am not any sort of magical, cute or princessy character. I. Am. Alice. Hear me bloody well roar!"

By the time she screamed the word 'roar', I had reached the top landing and was tumbling into the tower room opposite the door to the main apartment; Rosalie & Emmett's domain. It had been so long since I had laughed and really meant it. I ditched the bags unceremoniously on the huge bed and joined the luggage there, messing up the covers as I rolled around, my sides starting to ache with the almost alien sounds erupting from me. When I finally sat up, not yet calm, I found my entire family standing in front of me by the door, each looking at me as if I was a cretin, an imbecile. They were probably right with that assumption. Esme looked almost relieved, as if I never smiled or laughed.

Maybe I didn't ever smile or laugh.

I stood up and made a half-arsed effort to straighten out the bed, still wearing the smile of a fool. Rose made a huffing noise and pushed me out of the way, straightening everything up and moving the cases into position so that she could open one of them and shuffle some stuff into the pink en suite bathroom.

I threw an arm around Alice's shoulders. "C'mon, short stuff. Ow-oufffffff." She thumped me in the stomach hard, but didn't remove my arm from where it was resting and slid hers around my waist. I ruffled her hair. "Let's see what you've concocted for dinner."

Dinner with all of us together as a family occurred around the large round wooden table in the kitchen. While Jasper and I had been out, Alice had made it look like someone's home. Possibly mine, although I wasn't convinced as it hadn't looked this homely since New Year's, when they'd last been here with me, apart from the first night that Isabella stayed here, when she and Esme had sat at the table together. The table was set properly: knives, forks, spoons, and the smart white linen napkins that I kept in a drawer and never used, which only saw the light of day when Alice or Rose were cooking. The room was lit with candles. Everywhere. Every surface had at least two lit candles. As I walked into the kitchen behind Emmett and Jasper, I glanced over to the wall behind the door and made sure that the fire extinguisher was on the wall, and the fire blanket hung above it. Last thing I needed was a fire. I could just see us being accused of starting it deliberately to get the money. Even the thought made me shudder.

I was going to object to the fact that my home looked like a home, make some sort of smart-arsed remark, and then changed my mind. Alice made an effort for all of us, and it was actually, kind of, well, nice. She told us where to sit and I noticed there was an empty space. I looked questioningly at her and then at the vacant chair to my left.

"Well, I thought, perhaps, maybe... Oh never mind." She cleared the place setting away quickly and we all shuffled around a little, filling the gap with little effort.

Amazingly, she'd managed to fix a decent meal from the contents of the freezer. She added some great claret from the cupboard half way along the downstairs hallway between the office and cafe, which we kept locked and laughingly referred to as the wine cellar. It made for a great change from eating take-out pub fare.

The pub, where Isabella Swan and Michael Newton were probably still together, sitting next to each other: Knees touching, hands resting on top of the small rickety table, little fingers entwined, eyes meeting and darting away creating silent promises, drinks being consumed lowering inhibitions, innocent whispered suggestions made, skin heating up, their breathing accelerated as they moved closer in towards each other, foreheads a hair's width away.

No!

Fuck, NO!

Something smacked me on the forehead with amazing accuracy hitting me between the eyes, straight above my nose. A bread roll. That would be Jasper then. It was followed by another one, not so accurate, but much harder. Emmett. Ow. Fuck.

"Ow. Fuck. Stop that, you bastards," I yelled at them.

"Edward, darling?" Esme asked, her face creased with concern while the others looked slightly amused. "You were muttering to yourself. Is something bothering you dear?"

"No, no, I'm fine," I stammered. "Sorry, just thinking about the land and the bank and stuff."

"More like the sexy banker," Emmett laughed as he threw another, better placed bread roll at me, hitting me square in the eye.

"Fuck's sake. Stop it, Em!"

"Edward, your language. Please..." my mother yelled in warning.

"Sorry, Mum."

We all helped clear up; the girls washing, the chaps drying and putting away. Esme then retired for the night as the rest of us piled into the sitting room. Alice and Jasper called the large brown leather sofa, while Rosalie and Emmett half-heartedly complained about being left with the smaller one. I sat on the floor, on my own apart from the five dogs curled up around me. Fi was lying at my feet, on her back, warming up her round speckled podgy gut with the heat from the log fire.

The boys drank whiskey. The girls sipped on cups of decaf. Real decaf of course. Alice had been thrilled to see the machine was out on a regular basis thanks to Isabella's presence in the house. We put on the television, half watching reruns of American sitcoms and then a reality show that involved overweight celebrities ballroom dancing, which for some inexplicable reason the girls seemed to love.

At about eleven o'clock, my dozing was brought to a sudden end as I heard a door click, the patter of tiny feet, and another door click. All five dogs jumped up and rushed to the door of the family room, all agitated and whimpering, begging to go out.

She must be home.

Emmett and Jasper were both asleep. Emmett was snoring. Jasper's head had disappeared down the back of the sofa behind a huge throw cushion, his arms wrapped around Alice. Alice and Rosalie were sleepily discussing some book about Swedish dragons they'd both been reading. I slowly pulled myself up from the floor, my bones and muscles aching and creaking, and stumbled to the door, opening it slightly to let the dogs out.

She appeared.

Fuck my luck.

As I opened the door, the mutts bounded across the hall and down a little bit towards her room, traitorish tails wagging. Suddenly they sped up, staggering to a halt in a straight line, just before her room. They didn't need to go in to be next to her, because there she was.

Glorious. Beautiful. Disheveled.

What the fuck?

Dis-fucking-cheveled.

Our eyes met, her face flushed and my cock hardened suddenly, painfully. She looked away immediately and bent her knees so she should reach to pet the dogs, stroking them gently and calling each one by name. Keeping her eyes down, she stood up and darted into her bathroom. All five dogs flopped down, noses pointed towards the bathroom door, alert, waiting for her to emerge. Bloody backstabbers. I stood staring. Hearing the loo flush, I knew I ought to stop listening, but I just couldn't. My feet were super-glued to the spot, listening to her go to the loo.

Fuck's sake.

I heard the taps turn on, some water sloshing, and then they were turned off again. I knew I should move. The dogs leapt to their feet, tails wagging, and I knew that I had to move, but I couldn't. My feet had melted into the ground and I couldn't physically move them. It appeared as though I had become the stalker I'd feared I was. I was so screwed.

As the door opened to the bathroom, I felt my body being jerked backwards into the sitting room, quickly, quietly, and as far as Isabella was concerned, invisibly.

"What the fu...? Em? What are you doing?" I snapped at him, trying to remove the one arm that was around both my arms and chest, and the other which was around my waist. Of course, because he had his arms around mine, mine were immovable, and so I wriggled around like someone having a fit, my legs flailing about, six inches off the ground, kicking Emmett in the shins with my heels as hard as I could. Crack army training out of the window, brothers fighting, regressing back to the ages of eleven and seven, front and present.

"Edward, you are an idiot. Leave the poor girl alone. Listening outside the bathroom door while she takes a pee is halfway to getting a restraining order, not sorting out our problem."

He put me down. I turned around and hit him hard in the gut. He didn't even flinch. My fist hurt. I crashed down onto the ground, rubbing the aching bones with my hand.

The door opened. A beautiful head appeared around the corner and I sat up straight, as if I were an eight year old wanting to please his primary school teacher.

"I thought I'd let these guys back in here with you," she said quietly, her eyes darting around, finally meeting Alice's and smiling. The dogs all came back in, not looking pleased. "I'm off to bed now. It's been an interesting evening and I'm exhausted. I'll see you in the morning. Good night."

We all wished her a good night in response and she shut the door behind her.

I breathed out hard. Emmett belted me on the back of the head.

"Fuck's sake, Em. What was that for?" I rubbed the back of my skull with my sore hand, wincing at the pain in each.

"Just because, Arse."

Rose stood up and stretched her arms, yawning as she moved. "That's it. I'm off to bed. Breakfast at nine, yes?"

Alice rose to her feet as well. "I'm meeting Esme and Bella at nine. How about eight thirty, and you can come too?"

They made their way out of the room not giving any of us a look.

I stood up, running my hand through my hair and mindlessly scratching at my scalp. I whistled. The dogs padded over to me and we all left to go out one final time for the night, leaving my brothers to clean up in the family room.

_I couldn't believe this was actually happening. To me. And her. To me and her. To her and I. Us. Together._

_She was so close to me and even though there was no physical contact, I could still feel her. I moved again, just a few millimeters closer to her. What she'd said had to have meant something. She'd said that the evening had been a horrible mistake, that she regretted even thinking about agreeing to go, it was me she really wanted and me she needed; me she craved._

_At midnight, when I had ventured down the backstairs for the final time with the dogs, I noticed the office light was still on. I waited impatiently for the dogs to do what they had to do, pacing along the path while running my hands repeatedly through my hair, making it stick up all over the place. The faint shadows from the moon's glow and the false light from the office windows meant that on the ground I could see a multitude of crazy hair silhouettes, dancing wildly together in the breeze. I didn't turn to stare in through the office window, keeping my back to it. If the light was still on when I'd finished outside, then I'd pop in to say good night._

_Yeah right._

_After an uncomfortably long interval, I managed to get the dogs back inside and ran them up to the flat. I raced down again trying not to make a sound as my feet slipped on the steps, my shoes still wet from the damp grass, attempting to arrive at the office door __appearing cool, calm and collected. Stopping about a foot away from the closed door, I could hear music through the closed wooden barrier. Nothing specific, just melodic sounds. I rubbed my hands down the front of my trousers, wiping away imaginary sweat and then pushed them through my hair twice, before rubbing them against my thighs again. Taking an unnecessarily deep breath, I slowly opened the office door, cringing slightly as it creaked._

_I could see the reflection of her face in the far window. She looked up from her computer, her fingers frozen mid-tap, and her glasses half way down her nose. She pressed one button on the keyboard and the strings she was listening to became an almost indistinguishable buzz in the background. As she swiveled her chair around, her eyes met mine. She crossed her ankles and placed her hands on her lap, resting them where the folds of her dress tucked in between her creamy thighs._

_"__May I help you, Mr. Cullen?" she asked, her voice slight, her tone welcoming._

_She was still wearing the blue dress and the high-heeled shoes. Her legs. Gah! I tore my eyes away from her legs and up to the perfection that was her bewitching face._

_"__Um, I'm not sure, I, err, umm..." I trailed off._

_Excellent. It appeared that blithering-idiot-Cullen had made a return to the building._

_She motioned to the desk across from hers, my desk. I walked over hoping that my hard on, which had inevitably made an appearance, wasn't obvious._

_"__So Mr. Cullen, let's talk. We don't ever talk. I talk, you snap; I discuss, you ignore. It's midnight. We're alone, the dogs are... somewhere. Your family is asleep. Let's just talk"._

_I nodded and covered my mouth in a way I hoped was subtle, resting my chin on my thumb, my first finger crooked across my lips, unable to trust my internal filter. God only knew what I would say by accident if I didn't watch myself._

_We talked._

_I looked up at the clock. It was almost two o'clock. I don't know what we talked about that had lost two hours of our time, but we weren't arguing. That had to count for something._

_She had moved when I wasn't looking, which was amazing in itself as I had been watching her every move, breath, and blink for what was apparently two hours. Suddenly, she was inches from me, our bodies not quite touching, but I would have defied anyone to fit a grain of rice between us. We were both standing by my desk. Her hands were behind her back. I lowered my head slowly, bringing my hands up to gently cup her soft cheeks. She carefully raised herself up onto her tiptoes, her high-heeled shoes still not enough to make us anywhere near equal height. I rubbed my calloused fingertips against her cheekbones, the tips of my thumbs against the arc of her jaw. She lifted her chin, moving it slightly from side to side, allowing my palms and finger tips to lightly caress her pale skin. That skin was the color of the palest roses, the scent of which delicately surrounded her, and yet managed to entirely captivate and intoxicate me._

_I breathed her in, my hands cautiously bringing us closer together. The tips of our noses touched, rubbing against each other; our breath becoming one, our breathing getting progressively faster and noticeably harder._

_I sighed._

_She moaned._

_I broke._

_The taste of her mouth was like nothing I had ever imagined; sweet, but not too sweet, hints of mint and of cinnamon. As I slowly ran my tongue around the smooth fronts of her teeth, she opened a little, allowing me to caress her tongue. She slid her arms up over my hips, my chest and then around my neck, pulling me closer to her._

_I stood up straight. My cock stood up straight. She hung onto me tightly, pulling me closer still, her breathing becoming more erratic as she pushed her tongue against mine. I moved one hand away from her face, over her ear and down her neck, each bit of her skin lighting my desire for her further. My fingertips glided over her shoulder and down her back, feeling her bra strap; down her bony back, coming to rest on her hips, stretching my fingers so they were touching her fabulous arse at the same time._

_The smell of red roses was faint and yet so overwhelming. It matched the passion churning inside me, pounding from my heart to bolt through my veins. I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anything. For the first time in my life, I felt complete; I felt whole. The feeling of happiness I had uncovered the night of the funeral was suddenly utterly insignificant, smashed into a billion tiny pieces, to be replaced by something sturdier, more fulfilling._

_Joy? Exhilaration? Complete and unadulterated rapture._

_Her mouth was moving, her teeth nipping at my bottom lip, dragging it into her mouth, and sucking on it. It was my turn to pull her closer, my solid cock pressing into her stomach, her breasts against my chest, nipples visibly hard through her bra and dress._

_Her mouth followed mine as I pulled back, just the smallest bit. I brought my hand from where it rested against her chin and cheeks and placed it on her neck, letting my fingers feel her hair as it brushed softly against my knuckles. I moved backwards slightly, dragging her with me, and leant against the edge of my desk, opening my legs so she could fit in between them._

_I ran my hand from the neck down to her bare shoulder, drowning in the feel of her skin. My lips followed my hand. Starting with her lips, I kissed her slowly, licked her steadily, savoring the taste. I reached her shoulder and nibbled for a second on her collarbone. She shuddered as she ran one of her hands through my hair, alternating between ragged stroking, and restrained tugging._

_It was the other hand though, that was almost my undoing._

_Without warning, her other hand was around my denim covered cock, rubbing it as if her life depended on it._

_I gasped. Loudly._

_She kissed me again, hard, one hand still running through my hair, the other still outlining the shape of my extremely hard cock._

_Then I moaned. I fucking moaned into her mouth. And she groaned back into mine. I started to push her dress off her shoulders, my movements suddenly less controlled and far from calm; more frenzied and needy. She undid the top button of my jeans and then the button-fly, grasping my cock through the soft cotton of my boxers. I pushed her back, sliding the dress down off her body, all at once, slow again. Not knowing whether this would be both the first and last time we would do this, I wanted to savor the experience, taking time to inhale every piece of her with my eyes so I would be able to remember what she looked like once she kicked me into touch realizing what a fucking awful mistake being with me had been._

_Once the dress was over her shoulders she let go of me, gave an almost imperceptible shake and the dress was on the floor, pooling around her shoes, the patterned blues rippling as they settled on the ground. She stepped back and carefully kicked it out of the way. I took her hands and almost stiff armed her, not wanting her to move closer, wanting to look at her._

_Her lacy blue bra held the breasts I longed to taste and a tiny lacy thong thing sat flush on her hips. Her skin was apparently flawless, apart from three small blue stars on one hip. I looked at them, and then moved on, enjoying the toned body in front of me. The pert tits would fit into my hands without any waste, the smooth hairless pussy evident behind the almost invisible underwear; the long legs, the flat stomach, the incredible hair that hung past those perfect tits, the blush that was, without warning, covering almost every inch of skin._

_"__Edward? Is something wrong?" She asked, her voice uncharacteristically worried, her tone concerned and defensive, but also somehow scared._

_"__No, love. Everything, and I mean everything, is perfect."_

_She pulled at my jeans. "Your turn," she murmured and changed direction slightly, removing my faded rugby jersey up and over my head, then bending toward me and placing one hand back on my straining cock, she took a nipple into her mouth. Her tongue ran around it, making it hard instantly, and while licking it, brought her other hand up away from my jeans, much to the horror of my cock which thought that its life was inexplicably over. She started to scratch at the other nipple, which was already erect, desperate for her touch._

_I groaned, kissing her hair, her forehead, moving my hands all over her. A terrible need to feel her, all of her, cascaded through me. I touched as much skin as I could, attempting to savor every inch, but wanting more. She ran her tongue in the dip at the centre of my collarbone, and with each movement of her tongue, I wanted her more and more._

_I undid her bra, my practiced hands making opening the little clasps a doddle. The straps moved a little down her arms, and her tits swung free, still pert, the nipples stiff and pink. I ran my hands down her back one more time, rounding her supple body just above the hips, and then slid my palms up her stomach to cup her tits._

_By now, her hands had gone back to work on my cock. She pushed my jeans and boxers down to my knees together, getting them out of the way as quickly as possible. My cock was standing straight out, harder than it had ever been, painful in its swollen state._

_She knelt down, effectively removing my hands from my new favorite toys. I looked down at her, at my desire, perspiring in anticipation of what was to come._

_She licked her lips, looking up at me as she reached to get hold of my hips._

_And then I realized._

_Fucking hell._

_I was shooting myself in the foot._

_I should attempt to be a gentleman._

_I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anything as I looked down into her hypnotizing eyes and luscious lips, which were now just a breath away from encircling my cock._

_"__Isabella?" She looked up at me, raising an eyebrow in amusement, her chin brushing the tip of my cock as she did so. "Bella? Love? Are we going to do this? Because if we go any further I don't think I have the strength to stop. I -"_

_She stopped me. She pulled my head down to hers, my knees bending in the effort to reach her, hoping I wouldn't poke her in the eye with my hugely enlarged cock as I lowered myself._

_I sunk onto my knees, so we were finally of equal height, trying to move my jeans down to my ankles to gain a little more flexibility. Her mouth was on mine, kissing me hard, our tongues twisting together in a complex and yet un-choreographed dance. It was killing me._

_I loved her._

_This is what love felt like._

_Like hope and fear and pain and lust and need and care and desire. Topped off with a layer of utter desolation._

_All gentlemanly thoughts exited through the fireplace and up the chimney._

_Her hands were back in my hair, twisting and pulling, stroking and caressing. Mine were on her back, holding her closely as my cock tried to nestle quietly in between her thighs. We shuffled together to the side, away from the desk and towards the fire, which was out though still giving off some heat, and I toppled slightly, my legs caught up in my now, very unnecessary jeans._

_She giggled and helped straighten me up as I pushed them to my ankles and kicked them off._

_We knelt together again and kissed, tongues and lips entwined, chests together, my cock now firmly wedged in-between her slick, wet thighs._

_I pulled away, my heart breaking at the feeling of not being with her._

_"__Are you sure?"_

_She nodded._

_We lay down together by the fireplace. I could have sworn that it was out a moment ago and now for some reason it was our only light source. The kissing and touching started again, this time faster and more frenzied, the desire building._

_"__Touch me Edward," she moaned, "I need to feel you, need you to see how much I want you, how much I need you. I need to show you how much you need me."_

_I moved my fingers down and pushed them between her legs, feeling burning wet flesh._

_"__Fuck, love. You're so wet," I whispered._

_She smiled into my mouth, "Just for you, my love, just for -"_

_The room was full of light; bright white, blindingly intense light. The fireplace was gone, a gaping hole in its place and our desks had disappeared, huge splinters covering the ground in amongst the brick mess. We were surrounded by piles and piles of rubble._

_I could hear nothing and everything. Screams and roars, the sound of heavy gunfire, adults screaming, sirens wailing, children crying. My ears were overloaded. I couldn't see my equipment close by. It was always close by. Had I been too caught up in Isabella and made a fatal mistake? Had my desire to be with her lead us both to an easy demise?_

_She kicked off her shoes and scrambled into her dress, while I tucked myself back into my boxers having no time to waste. The walls were gone, and we were surrounded by rubble. I passed her my mask and wondered briefly if the blazing sun would scorch her immaculate skin. As I pulled my jeans back up and pulled my flak jacket on, I held her to me, trying to keep her safe._

_I whispered in her ear, "Stay close, Petal, I'll keep you safe. You're mine now love. Mine."_

_I heard a familiar voice yelling, Phil's voice, telling me that Aheem had betrayed us, that two of the guys were down. I pulled her closer, my gun leading both of us._

_She screamed._

_She went down._

_My world turned red._

_Her blood, everywhere._

_I went down on top of her, screeching at her to be okay, ordering her to be brave. Crying that I loved her. That I needed her. I finally had her and I wasn't going to lose her now._

_I continued screaming and yelling at her, pulling her too me. My heart was bursting from my body and every scrap of my training was telling me to move, to leave her, that she was dead. Every single thing about her was limp, and as I held her to me, my arm wrapped around her perfect, beautiful waist, her head lolled back, her spine bent away and her legs just flopped. The only movement was the blood, pouring from the gash in the middle of her unmatched face._

_My mouth was full of sand, and my eyes were blind with stupid fucking tears. Phil was yelling at me, telling me to leave her, telling me that she was only fucking me to make me an easy touch when it came to selling Glen Glas._

_I looked down at her crumpled body and screamed, every ounce of pain issuing out like a river escaping through a broken damn. I glanced over my shoulder. They were moving, seven figures running, crouched down. Not nine. Seven. I'd lost two, as well as Bella, and I hadn't even noticed that they'd gone._

_Sand and fine particles of rubble whipped around my face. I shouted something at my guys, something even I couldn't hear or understand, and motioned for them to follow me, scrabbling across the remains of the school we were supposed to have been protecting. Crawling along on my belly with my gun aloft in both hands, pieces of debris poked into me as I wriggled less quickly than I would have liked along the piles of uneven wreckage._

_I was scared. I was absolutely fucking petrified. And I'd lost her. I'd lost my reason for living, the woman who against the odds I had completely fallen for, lock, stock, and fucking barrel. I could still see her body. I moved to go back for her, to bring her with me, or to die there where she had died. There was another explosion, more rubble, more sand spreading everywhere, blinding me for a moment. When I looked again she was gone, only her hand could be seen amongst the debris._

_I yelled again, almost there, my feet tripping, the hole where my heart used to be pounding, the sun thumping, the noise roaring, the sweat surging and-_

I woke up. Immediately I sat bolt upright.

I was soaking wet, my hair stuck to my head and face. Sweat poured down my back and into my pajama trousers. From my forehead to my neck and then over my chest, rivers of sweat were running through the few hairs that were there, uniting in pools in the creases of my stomach. I sat with my knees pressed up to my chest, trying to feel something other than fear, shock, and an inordinate deep throbbing sadness.

I could hear a peculiar vibrating noise. Then I noticed that I was shuddering and shaking, and I could hear words coming from my mouth. I didn't know what they were, but that didn't matter because my teeth were bouncing together, chattering as if I was frozen.

Behind all that, I could hear another sound. The voice of an angel.

"Edward?"

A pause.

"Edward?"

Another pause.

"Edward? Can you hear me?"

I can hear you, Petal. Can you hear me?

"Edward. I am going to have to go and get Emmett or Jasper in a minute. You don't look or sound well. Do you think you could calm down a bit for me?"

A soft cool hand wrapped itself around my wrist.

"Edward, can you look at me?"

I tried to focus.

I could almost smell roses.

She was alive.

She was a-fucking-live

Joy flooded into me, every ounce of pain and panic and heartbreak was gone. For a nano- second. And then I realized that this was worse. That she'd know.

She was there.

In my room. Sitting on the side of my bed.

I was a freak with nightmares, cockblocking nightmares that fucked with my head, made me think I was in love. Fuck's sake. The war bits were meant to be in the compartment that kept things hidden and as for the fucking Isabella stuff, well, oh fuck... I was so fucked up in every way.

"Fucking what, Edward? Sorry, I can't hear you, you're muttering." She sounded worried. And pissed off. And tired.

I brought my eyes up to look at hers.

Shit.

Pain, worry, sympathy, heartbreak, care, agony, warmth, anger. It was all there.

"Get out Miss Swan," I growled. "It was just another nightmare. Nothing to concern you. Please. Go."

She moved a little bit closer towards me, her white nightie covering every inch of her from the neck down, and yet somehow, although the minimum of flesh was showing, it was still fuck- hot. Cue another inappropriate hard-on.

She covered both my hands with hers. Her tiny fingers softly coiled into mine.

Our eyes met.

Seconds, minutes, hours, perhaps even days past.

And then she was gone.

And I was alone.

Again.

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**Please review if you haven't already**


	9. Chapter 8

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my superb betas.**

**Here's the rejig of Chapter Eight. Chapter Nine is ready for me to go through Sam's edits, which I will do as soon as I get internet access again (I'm still on my holidays in Scotland)**

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the places. Official disclaimer is own my profile page and on my website (link is on my profile page)**

* * *

Edward had tried to kick me out of his room. Again. This time though, I took matters into my own hands before he had the chance to hurt me. Again.

He obviously wanted me- _that_ was very clear. To be honest, he needed someone; maybe me, maybe not. He needed someone to be with him, to help him, because hearing the second half of his dream was horrifying. No one should so completely terrified by their own subconscious.

His harsh rejection of my company, even though there was so obviously something between us, had made me feel inexplicably sad, as if my heart had been violently hacked from my chest. I could understand he was probably embarrassed about the things I'd heard, and I got that he was probably still half asleep when he yelled at me. But he'd stared at me as I'd stared at him, and he must have felt the same strange draw that was pulling us together. Whatever the hell it was, it was going to destroy our professional relationship such as it was, and annihilate any chance we might have of a more personal one.

So, I did what I'd always done when a personal relationship was destroyed or ruined or was indeed just plain uncomfortable. I fled.

I found my way back into my room, and crawled onto the small velvet chair by the window. Folding myself into the chair with Sula wriggling her way onto my now quilt covered lap, I cried.

My nose ran, my sinuses bubbled, my ears popped; tears poured uncontrollably from my sore, tired eyes, and I wept.

It was ridiculous that one man, a man who I really hardly knew, could have such an effect on me.

As I witnessed the sun rise from behind the hills, I relived every word that had come from his room; every sigh, every moan, every pant, while I had stood and listened like some hideous stalker. The feelings his words and noises had brought out in me were frightening. He had been having one of those dreams, about me. Echoes of my name came flooding into the hallway amongst the loud grunts and groans. It was funny, almost unexpected, and for some stupid, strange, primal reason, it was hot. I felt my body temperature shift from being freezing cold to scorching hot as I heard his exclamations gush from his bedroom. The telltale signs of sexual attraction became apparent, my body taking no notice of my mind, as my nipples hardened, the apex at the top of my thighs became slippery, and I started to fight the overwhelming desire to rush in to his room and jump his bones, to have him bang me within an inch of my life; to hold me, to want me. To admit he needed me in every way.

I had woken because the dogs were whimpering at my door, Fi and Sula apparently so distressed that they sounded like babies howling for their mother. I groaned, but had pulled myself out of bed and gone to the door to let them exit, hoping they didn't want to go into the garden. I didn't fancy either fighting with the alarm system on the back door myself, or having to wake Edward to ask him to do it. Instead of rushing towards the door to the backstairs, or even towards the kitchen, they had bolted for his bedroom door and pushed their black noses to it, the two smaller dogs scratching the bottom edge, the three larger ones making baleful noises.

That's when I heard the first panting sounds, the first grunts, the first pleas.

After about five minutes of ignoring the dog's pleas, they all just curled up outside his shut door. I decided that my stalker-like behavior was just plain stupid and I made the move to return to my room, attempting to ignore the reactions my body was having to hearing his words. I should have just retreated and gone back to sleep.

That's when it all went wrong. It was then the screaming started.

His voice roared as he screamed my name, telling the girl in his dream not to die, telling someone called Sam that he wasn't willing to leave her, telling her that it would be okay. And it only seemed to get worse. He was telling her he loved her, that she couldn't' be dead, and then he cried as he told her he had to leave her. I couldn't bare it, my heart was pounding, the passion had turned to panic and I was sweating and afraid. I had to go in, had to wake him up. I had to make sure he knew that I was okay, that he was okay. I opened the door, not caring if I made any noise, and darted in after the dogs, who couldn't quite believe their luck.

He was thrashing around the bed, his words and sobs painful to my ears. I sat down on the edge of his bed and called his name. Gently at first, trying to get him to wake from his nightmare. I had no idea how to deal with people in this situation. Should I leave him to it, should I try to wake him? I wondered for a moment whether I should get Emmett or Jasper, but decided against it.

I tried again, to wake him by just calling his name.

"Edward?"

I waited. Nothing. He thrashed about, yelling and shrieking, his face contorted.

"Edward?"

He stopped moving quite so frantically, although his arms and legs still flailed around and he was still shouting, the words now were almost indistinguishable.

"Edward? Can you hear me?"

I almost howled as his leg moved unexpectedly towards me and he kicked me roughly in the thigh. He sat up, obviously completely confused, his eyes still closed.

I tried again. "Edward."

Nothing, no response to my voice.

"Edward."

Nothing. Oh God, this was scary shit.

It was as if he was awake and asleep, simultaneously. I tried one final time, knowing I was out of my depth.

"Edward? Can you hear me?"

I shuffled up the bed a little closer to him, wincing in pain, knowing that I was going to have a bruise from his kick.

I rubbed my leg with one hand. "Edward. I'm going to have to go and get Emmett or Jasper in a minute. You don't look or sound well. Do you think you could calm down a bit for me?"

I wrapped the other hand around his wrist My touch seemed to calm him, and at the same time, bring him into consciousness.

"Edward, can you look at me?"

He opened his eyes. They darted around the room, finally coming to rest on me, and then he did the muttering thing that really irritated me.

"Fucking what, Edward? Sorry, I can't hear you, you're muttering."

He looked so angry and so sad. I wanted to hold him to me, to comfort him, to kiss his eyes to make them smile, to wipe the fear and the sweat from his face, to see the funny smile his lips formed when something amused him, to make everything alright.

To mend him.

That was the moment he tried to kick me out and the rational part of my befuddled brain told me to go. The other ninety-five percent, the irrational, Edward Cullen-obsessed part of me, told me to stay.

I moved closer.

Our eyes met. His eyes softened, dragging me into them, letting me garner a glimpse of his soul. My heart melted. I considered making the move. We were so close. My arms could have wrapped around him in a second. I could make him feel better for as long as he would let me. A moment, a minute, an hour, a day. Whatever it took, I could offer that to him.

I became more immersed in his gaze, just before my rational, sensible, bank-bot side kicked in, and with one swift move, I was up and out of his room. Too much excess baggage. I had it, he obviously had it. We weren't in the running for a relationship and as much as I wanted to make things right for him, I couldn't. I couldn't offer him anything. Next week's conversation was getting closer and I was probably going to destroy him. What was the point of offering him me, only to be rejected when he found out what the outcome of my tenure would be?

That's what started the tears, the realization that I was too broken to get involved with him, to be any where near him in a capacity of anything other than a business associate. I knew that I'd have to pull away from Esme, and that distressed me. I liked Angela, and had taken pleasure from our relationship. Now that would have to go too. I had also enjoyed Alice's company yesterday and had been looking forward to meeting with her, Emse, and Rosalie in the morning. I'd have to pull away from any form of personal relationship.

As Edward would say- fuck my life.

I was waiting in the office when Alice, Rosalie, and Esme arrived at nine o'clock sharp: Alice smiling, Esme quiet, and Rosalie somewhat pissed looking.

"I don't see why I have to be here, Ali," she was moaning as they walked through the door.

"Because Rose, this is our bit, the thing we're doing to help Edward out. C'mon, don't be such a misery-guts. Promise I won't make you do anything else this holiday." She paused for a moment, as if in deep thought. "Okay, that's not strictly true. I will make you do all sorts of other things this holiday, but I promise this is the only one for this morning."

By now, they were all sitting down, Esme and Rosalie on the chairs that I had placed near the desks, and Alice in Edward's usual seat.

I pulled out the necessary papers with regards to the ceilidh. In the great scheme of things, the cost of putting on the party for the staff and the villagers was minimal, but cut backs had to be made everywhere if Glen Glas was to survive. For some irrational stupid unprofessional reason, I had spent the best part of a week with Esme, making those cuts.

I passed them all copies of the papers I'd put together with regards to the costs, possible savings and cuts, and the things I had put into place already. It wasn't my place to do this. I was supposed to be finding a way to save or sell Glen Glas. Aro would freak if he knew that I was spending my time trying to make a ceilidh less of a loss maker than it already was.

"Okay, Alice, Rosalie," I nodded at each of them as I addressed them. Alice beamed a dazzling smile back, Rosalie just looked fed up.

Unperturbed by her, ignoring her overwhelming and rather intimidating beauty, and knowing that as an accountant, a senior one at that, she could have helped Edward long before now, I continued. She could be as disinterested as she liked, but Esme had plans to get Rosalie to help out. Alice could barely be contained. Her job as director of a regional cancer hospice just outside London gave her a huge outlet for helping people, making sure that their final days were as comfortable and dignified as possible, but didn't give her much scope for exercising what Esme referred to as her 'artistic tendencies.'

"Esme and I have divided up the jobs for the ceilidh." They all nodded.

"Alice, I've cancelled the flowers from the mainland for the tables." Her face fell.

"It always looks so lovely. Mrs. McDowell always does a really lovely job. Even Rose thought they looked as good as we could get at home."

Rose neither confirmed nor denied this statement. She was busy examining her perfectly painted finger-nails.

Esme smiled at Alice. "It's okay, dear. There are more than enough flowers in the garden. We'll just use them. We've got plenty of glass jars saved up for the next lot of jam making. We can put them in there."

I nodded. "Savings so far: one hundred and forty pounds. Alice, you're in charge of decorations. Get the flowers, make the arrangements".

Rosalie made a choking noise.

"Rosalie, is there something you'd like to add?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level. She was irritating me with her lack of interest. This was as much Emmett's home as it was Edward's, and for that reason alone she could at least feign interest.

"Bella, honestly, a saving of one hundred and forty quid? That's hardly going to save the house."

I could feel myself losing my cool. At least I was trying, which was more than she'd been doing. I stared at her. She started back. Neither of us flinched. I could feel Alice's head moving backwards and forwards between us, waiting for one of us to crack. The atmosphere in the room was tenser than it should have been. We were talking about flowers, for God's sake.

Our little infantile stare-off was interrupted by Esme, who made a coughing noise, bringing us back to reality, or at least a semblance of reality. I felt my face ignite and looked down at my papers, trying to pull myself together to regain the upper hand.

I looked up. Rosalie was smiling at me. "Go on then. Show me what else you've got."

I sighed. Either she thought I was an idiot, or something I didn't understand had just happened.

I pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose and looked at the papers on my desk.

"Esme and I have decided on a pot-luck for the food." I looked at both girls, who both looked back at me blankly. "You know, a pot-luck? People bring food and share it. That way the food can be free, and everyone donates what they can afford."

"Great idea," Rose countered, "But what if they all bring haggis suppers- the chip van will be in the Village, it being a Saturday night?"

"That's what Esme said, so we've asked people to bring courses according to their surname." Alice and Rosalie looked at me blankly. I swear I could hear crickets, and in my mind, looked around for the dust ball that was sure to run through the office any second. Speaking slowly as if talking to idiots, but keeping my tone civil I said, "Muc's and Mac's to bring main courses, N - Z to bring dessert, A-L to bring appetizers."

They both nodded, comprehending what I'd said. Esme looked like the cat that got the cream. "We've cut the entrance price to two pounds a head, that way no one can complain about bringing the food and the pay bar."

"Pay Bar?" Rosalie asked, astounded. "That's got to have gone down badly. We'll be the only ones there, eating chopped up carrots and dip because our surname begins with C. We've always paid for the drink."

"Rosalie, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you have never paid for the free bar. Edward has paid for it, and last year it looks to me like the bank paid for it. I spoke to Mike last night and-" I paused. They were all staring at me now, three faces not hiding the fact that they wanted to know exactly what the previous evening had entailed. Nosy bitches. I grimaced to myself, remembering the events of the previous evening, before pulling myself together and continuing. "He has agreed to cover the initial outlay of the drink through the pub on a sale or return basis. I haven't told him any confidential information about Glen Glas, just that the way things happen are changing."

I could tell from their faces that this was not the information they wanted to hear, but I wasn't comfortable enough to talk to Alice and Rosalie about it, and although I would probably spill the beans to Esme at some point, now was not the time.

Alice was the first to recover, her face a picture of disappointment. She glanced at Rosalie, and then back at me. "Are we charging them bar prices?"

"No. Cost plus a little bit so we can pay the local teenagers, who Esme has persuaded to help out, a token. Six of them are evidently going to help us. We get them from after the rugby match up until midnight."

"So, Miss Bella Swan," Rosalie drawled, her eyes meeting mine again in challenge. "How much is this shindig going to set us back?"

I glanced at my papers. "Outgoings this year of around five hundred pounds, verses two thousand eight hundred last year." Even Rosalie gasped. I knew that in the great scheme of things this wasn't a huge savings. It wasn't going to rescue Glen Glas from the financial mire that it was currently wallowing in, but if I could get the girls to cut costs here, perhaps they would help when I presented Edward with the death knell that was almost inevitably going to ring.

Esme started to tell them about other steps we had taken to cut costs; how Dinah and Sal were going to help us set up, how she'd raided the attic for ribbon and material to use for decorations, how it was all going to be such fun.

I shuffled my papers and moved them to one side, pulling out another file, marked "Sale-able Land" and they took the hint, leaving me to it.

I spent the rest of the day working, preparing my final spreadsheets, making sure that my numbers were correct, my suppositions were in order, and my report was ready when I returned to Inverness the following week.

I didn't want to go back. I wanted to stay. I sighed. I couldn't. I had to go. No ties. Bella the bank-bot.

Esme had invited me to join the family on Sunday for Easter. Each year they would go to the local church for the dawn service, and then head home to set up an Easter egg hunt for the village kids and any visitors that were around. Next was Easter Sunday lunch in the main house. My invitation wasn't particularly special as she had also invited Ben and Angela; a cousin was coming from the mainland, Jacob Black from the bank and his girlfriend who were coming over for the rugby match, and a few staff members who didn't have family to be with. We would eat Glen Glas lamb and vegetables from her garden. Alice had already raided the wine cellar- closet area fairly successfully, planning a second expedition for the afternoon. Having become quite fond of the farmed animals, I wasn't convinced lamb was what I wanted to eat, but I was going to join them, because to be honest, I had nowhere else to go.

Thursday finished. I met Angela for a drink at the other pub, avoiding Mike, and probably Edward too. Thursday night brought the usual steps to my door and the silent, brooding steps away routine. I curled up in my bed, with Fi and Sula doubling as heating pads, keeping my feet warm and ignored him, as I always did.

Friday was a holiday and as such we were supposed, I guess, to be at Church for _Good_ Friday. Instead of course, we were picking flowers, cleaning jam jars, collecting pebbles from the beach to weigh the jars down, and tying plaid ribbon around the lip of the glass containers to decorate them as best we could. Rosalie mellowed a little and included me in conversation. I found, though, that I still wasn't comfortable sharing too much information with her or Alice. It was almost as if they were interviewing me, which was pointless as I had already been there for two months. Two whole months, and I was leaving in four days, probably never to return. In our talks, I tried to give them enough so they wouldn't think I was keeping quiet, and stayed silent on the things that I wanted to keep to myself. I had told Esme so much when I first arrived, and I appreciated her taciturnity.

Emmett, Jasper and Edward spent the day getting the village hall ready for the following day's ceilidh; moving tables and chairs in, and setting up the stage area for the band. The band was setting up tonight, and then would come to the match on Saturday. Alice occasionally jumped in the silver car and raced down to see how they were getting on and would return to report to Rosalie and Esme. I had discovered that it was a tradition each year that after the rugby game, the teams hit the pub before going to the ceilidh. No wonder Esme wanted the "boys to play their little song" before they were too drunk to move. I doubted that they would even make it to the nine o'clock slot she had allocated them, especially if they started drinking at about four-thirty that afternoon. But Esme assured me they'd be fine. I had to keep reminding myself it wasn't my problem either way. Somehow though, I had made it my problem.

At five o'clock Alice returned from her final trip to the village hall, having taken the homemade vases down there, as well as buckets and buckets of garden flowers and greenery. She skidded into the office which was now a make shift base for all ceilidh operations.

"They're in the fucking pub," she squealed.

"Alice, please, how am I meant to stop the boys if you use language like that?" Esme said, shaking her head, a smile on her face.

"Gah. They're all in there. Emmett, Jasper, Edward, the band, Carlisle. Two pints in already, I think. I went to get them to help with the flowers, and they sent poor Mike out. Oh," she changed track, "Mike was asking if you were coming the pub this evening?"

"I, err, I, umm, no, yes, are you going? No. Probably not. What?" _Excellent Bella, fantastic grasp of the English language. Now Rosalie will think you're a complete fool._

They all laughed, and after a minor hesitation, I laughed too. Rosalie put her arm around my shoulders as we headed out into the hallway and towards the stairs.

"Flustered about seeing the delectable Mr. Newton, are we?" she asked, a huge grin across her face.

"Yes. No. Yes. Fuck." Perhaps I'd lost the ability to put together a coherent sentence. I'd obviously been around Edward too much.

"Bella!" Esme whimpered, sounded utterly defeated. "Not you as well. You've obviously spent too much time with Edward."

Of course, in the end, I went to the pub. Alice and Rosalie had begged me to go with them, reasoning that I spent enough time in the office and the apartment, and that I only had a set number of nights out now. It didn't really take all that much convincing, but I played along with them for a while, so they thought they had achieved a victory.

I didn't look at Mike and avoided going to the bar, sitting myself in the corner where I couldn't meet his eye, and could keep my back to the wall.

I tried not to look at Edward, who in a rugby shirt and blue jeans, ruffled hair, flashing his wonky smile and stunningly green eyes around the pub, was a vision of stunning amazingness. It was impossible not to look at him. Alice and Rose were sitting on either side of me, and Emmett, Jasper and Edward were standing in front of the table. Pretty much obscuring any view of Mike that I might have had, had I wanted a view of him. Esme and Carlisle had stayed for one drink, before she had dragged him off, a glint in her eye that I would have rather not seen.

At about nine o'clock, and after my third or was it my fourth spritzer, full from eating a plate of fries and some bread and butter, I decided it was time to go home. I started to make my excuses. Mike overheard and offered to run me up to the house, indicating that Maeve and Jessica could look after the bar. Jessica seemed very keen to be left in charge, leaning over towards Edward and whispering something in his ear, her Ferry Boat Inn tee-shirt covered breasts hitting the bar trays as she tilted herself towards him.

He shook his head as she was talking to him and then turned pale. Really pale, as if all the blood had been drained from his face. He ran his long fingers through his hair. "It's okay, Mike. I'll run Isabella home. I've got stuff to do for the morning anyway."

I started to protest as he leaned into me. "If you'd rather go with Newton, just say and I'll get out of the way."

I shook my head, not particularly wanting to be alone with Mike, and said my goodnights to the rest of the Cullens, who were in the process of talking Jasper into buying yet another round of drinks.

We re- hashed the pattern of the previous night when he had taken me home. We drove along the forest road in silence. We entered the house in silence. We both bent down to greet the dogs, speaking gently to them, and then walked wordlessly up the steep staircase.

At the top, he pushed the heavy fire door open and let me pass through it before him. I walked towards my room, he walked next to me.

We reached my destination and I stopped and turned to face him.

Every part of my body was tingling. My nipples were noticeably hard, I felt heat rush into places that hadn't burned in what felt like years, and hadn't actually ever burned quite like _this _before. My breathing became erratic, and probably louder than normal. My face flushed. Blood pounded through my veins, pulsating as my heart thrashed behind my ribs. I brought my hand up to my chest, not really thinking what I was doing, but needing to feel what was going on in there.

I lifted my eyes up to his face. He was staring down at me and our eyes met and held. He muttered something, something that sounded like "fucking perfect", but I knew that couldn't be right. Stepping back slightly, my heels, head and backside hit the door to my room. I put my hand out to grasp the handle, still locking eyes with him, my other hand still on my chest. His breath washed over me as he moved closer, just a miniscule amount, but enough to know that for some reason he had the father of all hard-ons.

I squeaked. I don't think I'd ever squeaked before.

He lowered his head and kissed my cheek, just as before. He moved closer still, so that we were toe to toe, forehead to forehead, tented pants to stomach.

"Mr. Cullen," I began, my nerves giving out, my resolve shot to shit, but still trying to hold on to some shred of lucidity and rationality. I didn't want to be a notch on anyone's bed post, and if he kissed me I'd have a hard time not jumping on him then and there; wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.

"Isabella Swan," he countered, kissing my other cheek. He then brought his lips within a hair's breadth of mine, and in that second I could taste him. I knew what he could do to me, and how he could cause me to come completely and totally undone within seconds if he wanted to.

"Sweet, beautiful, Bella Swan." One of his hands covered the hand on my heart, and the other covered the one on the round metal door knob.

He bent forward, so very slowly, and kissed me so gently on the lips. His lips were soft, his breath sweet with an underlying hint of the beer he'd been drinking in the pub, his eye lashes grazed mine, our noses touched tenderly. It was, without a doubt, the singly most erotic moment of my life. My insides were running riot, I was fairly sure that I was sweating, and I was convinced that my panties were soaked through. He pulled back for a moment, and then very slowly and very carefully kissed me again. This time his lips applied a slightly harder pressure, but again, he made no move to open his mouth, to open my mouth. His fingers were entwined with mine. I moved a little, trying to get closer to him. He twisted the hand on the door knob, and with a sigh, pushed me backwards into my room, while moving away from me.

"Good night, beautiful Isabella." He looked so wistful, so pained, but I let him go. I couldn't do this; I didn't want the complications. Wanting him was bad enough. It wouldn't help if I gave in only to leave again in four days. I'd begun to realize that what James had done to me was merely hurt my ego and pride, because what I felt for him was a mere puddle in comparison to the ocean of feelings that hurtled through my system for Edward Cullen.

Damn him, I didn't need this. I moved backwards in my room and shut the door slowly, standing in the dark. Alone. I carefully stepped back towards the other side of the now closed door, and stood with my back against it, mirroring the position I had been in a few moments before, minus Edward's presence. No sounds emanated from outside in the hallway. Was he still outside my door, waiting for me to reemerge? I didn't know if he'd left or if he was still there. My breathing regulated after a few moments and then, grabbing a towel, I slowly opened the door, hoping against all hope that he was still there waiting, wanting to ravage me, while at the same time, hoping he wasn't.

Before the lock could click open I heard his phone ring, and then a half whispered string of obscenities. Before I could stop myself, I found my lips turning up into a smile. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime but was probably nearer ten seconds, he answered it and barked single words at the person on the other end; silence followed. I waited another moment or two before opening the door. Fi and Sula were there. And that was it. I retreated to the relative safety of the bathroom, showered, returned to my bedroom, and shutting the door for the final time that evening, curled up in my bed with tears in my eyes for a lost friendship that had never actually been.

I was brought out of a particularly confusing dream about pianos and ferry boats and welly boots, by a heavy pounding sound on my bedroom door.

I sat up a little and squinted at the clock on the nightstand, noting that it was just before six o'clock. Six o'clock. On a Saturday morning. I'd been asleep for about nine hours. The pounding continued. I wriggled my way out of the confusion of blankets and sheets twisted around me and pulled the quilt over my night gown. Angrily, I rammed my glasses over my eyes, opening the door to see who was demanding my presence.

A very bleary eyed Alice was standing there next to an equally bright eyed Rosalie. Both were in jeans and welly boots, with neither was looking as made up or polished as they usually did.

"Morning," I said, starting off with obligatory pleasantries. "Why are you here? Is the house burning down? Is something wrong with one of the dogs? Have you uncovered a missing million pounds under a floorboard in the attic that will solve all of the financial problems?" I was pissed at being woken up and I really didn't care if they knew it.

"Angela's been on the phone," Rosalie rushed out, "and some of the sheep started lambing yesterday, and there are a few problems, and we have to go help, and we thought you'd come too. Come on. We have lamb lives to save."

I looked at Alice, "Lamb lives to save?"

"Yup, three, all born to the same mother who's rejected them. They need feeding, come on. Ange's been up all night doing it, and it's our turn now. Wrap up warm though, it's bloody cold."

I shook my head trying to wake, and turned into my room looking for something suitable to wear. One pair of jeans and a Glen Glas hoodie later and I stood at the bottom of the stairs. Esme passed me a cup of tea and a sympathetic smile as I pulled on my wellies and joined Alice and Rosalie in a quick run up to Angela and Ben's house.

Angela was sitting on the floor in her tiny kitchen, her eyes hooded and red with exhaustion. Ben was no where to be seen. "He's up with the flock making sure that everything is going as it should," she explained.

Rose added, "Emmett is on his way to relieve him, and Jasper is looking to see if there are any stillborn lambs so we can attempt to swap these babies in with a new mother."

"Where's Edward- it's his bloody farm?" I asked, rather more harshly than I intended. All three girls exchanged quick glances, and then Alice and Roselie made a move towards Angela. They carefully took the blankets she had cradled awkwardly on her lap, passed one to me, and each kept one for themselves.

I looked at the contents the blanket, and there looking back up at me, was a lamb. A bloody lamb. That was it. There was no way I was eating lamb at lunch the following day, or ever again. The tiny creature made the funniest mewing sort of noise and licked its lips. Alice passed me a bottle. "Here you go. See, it's just one glamorous interlude after another here, isn't it?" I sat down on the floor next to Alice and Rose with my back against the warm Aga, and helped feed the little soul.

"It could be worse," Rosalie laughed. "Edward's had to milk the mother to get the colostrum, so that we give these darlings the right food for their gut. She's less than impressed. A pissed off sheep is something to be seen. According to Emmett, Edward's spent more time on his arse than he has on his feet."

I laughed. It felt good to laugh.

"He's been here since before midnight," Angela said, rubbing her red eyes, and yawning loudly. "He came as soon as Ben called and only had about an hour's kip. He'll never make it though this afternoon's match."

"Not your problem, Angel," yawned a familiar voice, and through the back door, Edward stumbled in with white liquid in a bucket. "This needs to be kept at the right temperature," he said to Rose, gesturing towards the metal pail.

Angela took it from him, and placed it on top of the Aga. She gently pushed Edward backwards into an old rug covered armchair in the corner. "Sleep Cullen, the others can deal with everything now."

He nodded at her, and swung his body around, pulling his feet up over the arm of the raggedy chair.

He looked around the room, and caught me peering at him. My cheeks flooded with heated color as he winked at me.

Again.

I looked down at my little charge, and concentrated on keeping her fed and warm, hoping against hope the others hadn't noticed.

A few minutes later, we all looked up as Edward started muttering.

"Bella" was the only discernable word.

Alice and Rosalie grinned. I groaned, and hid my face in the tiny, slightly- stinky body of my new charge.

We had left the lambs curled up together in a large, towel-lined cardboard box in Angela's kitchen. I was concerned that they might starve to death, or get out and burn themselves on the Aga, but the others seemed to know what they were doing. I wondered for a moment if Alice and Rosalie's colleagues knew what the girls got into when they went to Scotland. Feeding orphan lambs certainly wasn't on my list of "guess what I did on my holiday" must do and see list. Even so, that morning would stay with me forever, and I wouldn't have changed it for anything. We sat on Angela's floor, while Edward slept in the chair in front of me, and the girls and I talked of everything and nothing. They gave up trying to pry information out of me after a while, and then we just...talked. And talked. Every so often Edward would mutter my name, or some other random word, "bacon" being our favorite of the morning. After the forth time he uttered "Bella", nobody joked about the bacon anymore, though they just treated it with the same hilarity the other words seemed to bring.

By two o'clock, Alice, Rosalie, Esme, Angela and I were standing alongside a white line in the middle of the school field. Huge 'H' bars sat at either end. The grass was patchy at best, with muddy puddles littered all over it. It looked to me like an unkempt football field. An American football field. Alice admonished me when I said that out loud, pointing out that rugby was for real men, and that American football players couldn't possibly be real men, as they wore helmets and padding. The conversation continued for about twenty minutes when Rosalie finally called time out saying that real men played both sports, and that we had to agree to disagree.

Although the sun was shining it was still cool, but thanks to Esme raiding the gift shop, we were all warmly wrapped in layers of Glen Glas paraphernalia. I was wearing clean jeans, a Glen Glas tee-shirt, a kelly green Glen Glas fleece that was so big on me my hands didn't appear from the bottom of the sleeves, and my wellies. I had bought myself a pair about four days after arriving at Glen Glas, and I loved them. I'd splurged and bought Hunters, not the generic green wellies from the general store. Being bright purple, they seemed to offend Edward's sensibilities with regards to how wellies should look, but as Alice's were pink he couldn't really complain about the color of mine. To complain about my choice of boot color he'd actually have to hold a conversation with me, one where he would actually have to use real words that joined together to form a real and cohesive sentence.

Carlisle appeared first, in white shorts and a black rugby shirt. He jogged over to where we were standing, and gave Esme a chaste kiss on the cheek. She flushed slightly and giggled. Alice rolled her eyes, Rose made a yucking noise, and I smiled at how sweet they looked.

Alice noticed, and made an exaggerated sighing noise. "Don't encourage them, Bella."

"It's not like they need any encouragement," Rosalie shook her head as she spoke, rolling her eyes as Alice had done. Suddenly her countenance changed. Her back straightened, her face lit up and she was immediately and totally distracted. As Carlisle left Esme's side, whispering something to her before leaning down to kiss her again, I followed Rosalie's line of vision.

In the distance I could make out two lines of men jogging onto the rugby pitch, passing underneath one of the goal posts, and separating into two groups. One group was dressed in white shorts and green shirts, and the other in white shorts with a blue stripe, and red shirts. They both formed circles and huddled together. Around the sides of the pitch, groups of people had gathered, some in green, some in blue and or red. Mostly, they were just dressed for wet weather, standing around, waiting for the game to start.

Alice leaned over, "Our boys are in the green." I nodded, although having watched Esme wash and iron the fifteen Glen Glas shirts the previous week, and the village team's the week before, I was well aware of which team was which, and more to the point, who I was supposed to be supporting. She had endured a small battle herself getting the shirts back from all the players, so that she could send them out on the pitch in correct attire.

Clouds started to gather above the pitch, which was no surprise given the sun seemed always to be looking for somewhere else to go. I looked up and watched the sky begin to turn gray, and when I looked back down, three of the guys were running towards where we were standing.

Emmett, Jasper and Edward reached us, and stood in a semi circle in front of us. Emmett moved forward and grabbed Rose, kissing her soundly and holding her tightly. Jasper picked Alice up and kissed her as he swung her around. Edward stood and looked at the toes of his boots, his head down, running the fingers of one hand through his hair. By now Emmett had stepped back from Rosalie although he was still holding her hand, and Jasper had stopped spinning. All four of them were looking at Edward, and then at me. He remained in his awkward pose, and I was rooted to the spot, unsure why the situation was so suddenly difficult.

Somewhere in the distance a whistle blew. The older Cullens kissed their wives again, and moved to join the rest of their teammates. Edward remained still and silent.

"Edward, you need to get a move on, they're waiting on you", Esme told her youngest son. I glanced over at her, and then moved my gaze back to his face.

He lifted his head, and his eyes met mine. I could feel Esme watching us, Alice watching us, Rosalie watching us. We were standing in the middle of a field under a dark grey sky with over a hundred people lining the pitch, yet I couldn't hear anything apart from the gentle whoosh of the wind, and couldn't see anything other than Edward's dark- green, intense, staring eyes.

Someone coughed. I think.

I thought I heard a voice, Jasper possibly, yell his name, and follow up with a string of obscenities.

Someone amongst the group of opposing supporters shouted something course. A female voice. Edward's head snapped round, looking in the direction of the noise. Almost immediately, his eyes found mine again.

Another moment of nothing.

Suddenly he was within inches of me; I hadn't seen him move. Our eyes locked together. His hand found my chin, and lifted my head slightly.

Our eyes were still locked firmly together, the world around us faded out.

He dipped his head forward and kissed me, gently at first, with the same gentle passion as the kisses at my bedroom door. I closed my eyes and kissed him back, drowning in the sensation of his mouth on mine, the cool air whipping around our faces.

Somewhere beside me I heard gasps and giggles intermingling.

I willingly moved towards him as he pulled me closer with his free hand, wrapping it in my hair, his fingernails gently scraping my scalp. His tongue licked my lips, making me shudder slightly, a shiver echoing down my spine. I moved to open my mouth, and the kiss became harder, more intense. Without warning, he pulled back slightly.

I felt completely bereft.

"That, Isabella, is_ my_ good luck charm," he whispered, his every word sending vibrations through my body.

Someone else gasped; someone else giggled.

And he was gone.

I ran my tongue over my lips; tasting lips I could still feel, savoring his flavor. I could still feel his fingers in my hair; still discern the sensation of his hand on my chin. I watched him join the rest of the team, flinching slightly as he thumped Emmett hard on the arm in response to something his oldest brother had said. He turned and waved to us, the others waved back. I missed a beat and then waved too.

"Anything you'd like to share with the family Bella?" Alice laughed.

"No. At least I don't think so. I think he was reacting to the girl who shouted over there," I nodded my head in the direction of the opposing supporters.

"Jessica Stanley?" Esme queried. "I shouldn't think so. Apart from anything else, he's never really reacted to or cared about what she's said. He did that because he wanted to."

I could hear the smile in her voice, and I could feel my face grow hot.

Carlisle blew his whistle again, and the teams got into their positions. Mike and Emmett shook hands across the top of the pointed ball, and then Carlisle tossed a coin. It landed on the ground, and after a moment's scrambling to find it, Carlisle pointed in the direction of Mike village team, blew his whistle, and the game started with Mike's team getting to kick first.

Rosalie and Alice started screaming at their husbands the second the whistle went.

"Fucking kill him, Emmett," Rosalie screeched as Emmett tackled an equally huge man who had the ball, bringing him hurtling down to the ground. Alice was yelling similar things at Jasper. Esme slipped her arm through mine, and pulled me closer to her.

"Do you want me to explain the rules, dear?" she asked gently.

I shook my head. "Alice tried, but to be honest, I got lost when she told me that Jasper was a hooker." I looked at her and laughed. Then I tried googling the rules; that didn't help. It was her turn to laugh. "Mike tried to explain." Esme's face fell at the mention of Mike. Oh God, not her too. I needed to tell them what happened the night I met Mike at the pub. Maybe later at the party. Maybe.

I pulled her toward me, attempting to be comforting, wanting her to know that everything was okay. "I gather all that matters is that Glen Glas doesn't lose by too many points. He said something about tries and punts, but I was so lost he gave up."

"We usually lose," Esme said, her eyes following the action. "Every year the boys say that this is their year, and every year they're wrong."

She suddenly became distracted as Edward had the ball, and was running away from the rest of the guys, toward the posts; his speed was unexpected. Jasper ran just behind him to his left, and Ben to his right. Behind them were Mike and two guys from the petrol station. The girls were screaming louder and louder, and Esme started to jump up and down, her arm free of mine.

"C'mon Edward, get the damn ball over the line. Son, just bloody move!" She shrieked at him, her language getting more and more colorful. Alice and Rose had stopped their yelling and where staring open mouthed at their mother-in-law, their eyes wide. We all turned back to the game as the opposition got closer to Edward. He darted past one of the members of the other team who tried to tackle him, and then curved past another, slipping slightly in the mud, but managing to keep his grip and balance. He had run half the length of the field, and was almost at the posts. I could feel the excitement building in me as he got closer and closer to his target, and an alien feeling in my stomach and my chest.

"C'mon, C'mon, C'MON, Edward!" she kept yelling, and then stopped and cheered, hugging me, and hugging the girls, who then both hugged me. He threw himself across the white painted line, flat on his stomach, arms stretched out in front of him. Carlisle blew the whistle and he let go of the ball, as Jasper and Emmett threw themselves on top of him, ruffling his hair in a show of male sporting joy.

"He scored, he scored a try!" Esme shouted. I smiled and clapped, excited for them, thrilled for him. My feelings bubbled inside me, and I was dimly aware of something I'd not felt for some time. Pride. I felt proud of Edward Cullen. Who'd have thought it?

He picked up the ball after the boys un-piled, and threw it to Jasper.

Alice clenched her hands together. "Jasper's turn to shine, he'll kick it, he'll score a conversion," she whispered, her eyes fixed on her blond husband. I didn't ask what that meant. I just knew that it had to be important.

Edward watched us as he took his position behind Jasper, in a long spread out line with the rest of the team. Mike's team took up position under the posts. Jasper made a short run and kicked. As soon as his toe met the ball, the two sides charged each other. The ball sailed over the posts. Everyone cheered again, Alice jumped up and down clapping her hands.

Edward stood still and looked at me. Mike stood still looking at Edward.

Carlisle blew his whistle again, and the whole thing repeated itself. Except that Mike scored the next try, and then converted it. And the next, and then the next.

I could see Edward getting more and more frustrated with his team, with himself. Mike was approaching him repeatedly and saying things to him. I could see his anger growing, his eyes becoming slits, his face hard, his lips pinched. Whenever he stood still, his hand ran through his hair, and he glared at Mike.

By half time, Edward's one try accounted for nearly all Glen Glas' points, and although Jasper had managed to score some extra points by kicking the ball over the posts during the run of play, they were still miles behind Mike's team.

About fifteen minutes into the second half of the game, Edward's temper was becoming more and more apparent, and along with it appeared a look of utter determination. He continually glanced in our direction. Finally, the run of play started to go in Glen Glas' direction. Jasper got the ball and started to run, and just before he was tackled, threw the ball to Edward. Edward took it and started to run as if his life depended on it. From nowhere one of the opposition was on him, and he was splayed out in the mud, ball lost, and chin hitting the ground hard. The guy who had knocked him down scooped up the ball and ran with it, stomping on the side of Edward's face as he escaped with the ball tucked safely under his arm. Jasper tore after him, but I had stopped watching the game. I had to get to him. I had to make sure he was okay. The team coach, Dinah's husband, was on the pitch, pulling Edward up into a sitting position.

I started to run towards him, and then found that I wasn't going anywhere. Rose and Esme were holding me back, and Alice was standing in front of me, hands on her hips, grinning at me as my legs failed to move me.

"He's fine," she said, "honestly, he's fine. Carlisle hasn't even stopped the game. He's just bruised and bumped."

I attempted to appear relaxed, not feeling the least bit so inside, and looked over Alice's shoulder, watching him sit on the ground, staring back at me. His face was covered in mud and blood and his shirt wasn't much better. His hair was stuck to his head with sweat and mud, and he looked hot as hell. He got up, helped by the coach, and ran to join the rest of his team, who were now lining up under the posts to race out as Mike kicked the ball. More points for the village.

By the end of the game, after playing ninety minutes of hard rugby, the village team declared yet another seemingly inevitable victory. The teams clapped for each other, and there was a lot of macho back slapping and hair rubbing. Mike and Edward didn't communicate. Not verbally or physically at least. As they passed each other they stopped and stared, then they moved on to the next person they had to greet, their expressions changing as they left the other behind. Every so often Edward would look in our direction, and I would look down. After four more days, I would be nothing but the name on the bottom of letters and notices. Four more days. I could manage four more days without throwing myself at him.

We made our way back towards where Esme had parked the car, and the four of us climbed in. With the guys going to the pub, we had three hours to get ready to go out, or in my case, two and a half hours to sleep and half an hour to get ready.

I had no idea what to wear to a ceilidh. No idea at all. I finally settled on a blue dress so dark it was almost black and a long cream knitted jacket. They both seemed safe. Rose had said she was wearing jeans, and Esme had so been taken aback by that suggestion, I didn't dare myself. So I pulled out one of the two dresses I'd brought with me, and after a long hot shower, put it on. I made an effort with my hair and spent more than two minutes on my make up. I pulled out some impossibly high healed shoes, stuck some flats in a Glen Glas reusable shopping bag and went to the kitchen to wait for the others. Alice, dressed in tight dark pants and a cream chiffon top, was the first to arrive, and we were soon joined by Rose in expensive looking jeans and a scarlet halter-neck top.

"Bloody hell, Rose, you'll fall out of that top if you get swung too hard during the dancing," Alice laughed at her sister-in-law. She looked us both up and down. "We'll do. Right, let's grab Esme and go get our men."

"Our men?" I queried.

"Yes, _our_ men," she smiled at me.

I didn't want to burst her bubble, but I didn't have a man. I appeared to have a tentative, indescribable kissing thing with a man who thought it was okay to kiss me when he fancied, which was normally when he'd had more than enough to drink, and who ignored me the rest of the time. That was it.

I recited my new mantra to myself again and again. Four days, four days. Four days and I could get away from him, drown out his memory, and make him nothing more than a name on a file.

We arrived at the dance at about seven forty-five, after sharing a quick glass of wine in Esme's apartment, where I had ducked questions about either Mike or Edward from Alice and Rosalie. Esme had looked on, partly amused, partly sympathetic. We finally left and the questions stopped when Esme pointed out that the dancing started at eight, and the guys had been at the Inn since about four-thirty.

I had done an internet search on ceilidh dancing. They all had names like 'Dashing White Sergeant' and 'Reel of the 51st.' I had tried to teach myself the steps, but prancing around my little room with music playing through the tiny white earbuds hadn't really been conducive to learning anything at all, especially as the dogs thought I was playing a game, and had jumped on me as I moved clumsily around the floor.

Alice assured me it was easy, that it was all about patterns on the floor, and that by nine o'clock everyone was so drunk no one minded anyway.

We paid our two pounds each to get in, and clutching the appetizers Esme had put together, we walked into the hall.

The huge room had been transformed. Tables lined the walls of the hall with each table set to seat eight people. There were multicolored flowers on every table; the arrangements had been put together the day before. The band was set up on the stage and playing something Scottish sounding, that seemed both familiar and foreign to my ears. Flowers and vines hung from the wooden beams that ran across the ceiling. The bar area being manned by the teenagers was draped in flowers. Almost every man in the place was in a kilt, which to be honest, was decoration enough in itself.

I made my way to an empty table near the bar, and within seconds was joined by Mike Newton.

I looked around for help, support, for anything, but short of hitting him and telling him to fuck off, I was on my own.

"So, Bella," he drawled, his fingers curling a wave of my hair as he spoke. I'd quite liked Mike when we'd first met, but he was beginning to freak me out slightly. He leaned forward, his knee touching mine. "Beautiful Bella, can I get you a drink?"

"Yes please, a large glass of wine."

He shuttled off, and returned more quickly than I'd anticipated, a glass of wine for me in one had and a pint of beer for himself in the other. He sat next to me, and I was immediately hit by both the smell of beer and a rather unpleasant after-shave. It was a toss-up to which smelled worse. And then he breathed on me. Ahhh. The smell of stale garlic mixed in with the beer and bad cologne. Excellent.

I sat and listened to his attempts at charm and wit for about ten minutes. The Cullens had deserted me. I could see Rose, head and shoulders above everyone else, but couldn't see any of the guys.

The lead singer and violinist with the band called everyone to order, and asked them to form sets for the first dance. He gave out a few details, and couples started to make their way into lines of three. Dashing White Sergeant. I remembered that much. Mike was dragged up by two older women, who giggled when he called them 'girls', and I sat back to watch. I could now see the Cullens. Alice and Rosalie stood on either side of Jasper, who looked spectacular in his kilt; his socks straight, his shoes polished. He caught my eye, and waved, and seeing him do that, the girls waved too. I waved back, trying to stay inconspicuous in my corner, wondering if I could just leave to avoid further interaction with Mike. Jasper stood back slightly, leaning down to say something to Alice, and I saw behind him, Emmett, who was also kilted, and looked huge in a white shirt and green socks. Next to him was Esme. And next to Esme...And next to Esme was Edward. In a Scotland rugby shirt and his kilt, he was quite simply the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. He ran his hand through his hair as he spoke to Esme, standing awkwardly, his thick white socks bunched at the tops of his work boots. Emmett then saw me and waved; Esme smiled. And Edward caught my eye. And winked.

I almost came on the spot.

Racing heart - check.

Hot and cold flushes - check.

Flustered and inexplicably confused - check.

Difficultly breathing - check.

Dry lips - check.

Wet panties - check.

He smiled _that _smile at me, and then turned to face his mother. The pleats in his kilt swayed slightly as he moved, ready to start the dance.

I watched him all the way around. The dance was a progressive one, which meant that each group of three danced with another group of three for a section of the dance and then moved on to dance the same steps with the next group of three. He had laughed the whole time, swinging Esme around before passing her off to his oldest brother so he could do the same thing. All three of them were caught up in their own happy little world. Carlisle, like Mike, was dancing with two older women. He danced with what seemed like respect for them, guiding them around the dance floor carefully, and laughing with them.

Six minutes later it was all over. They all clapped and laughed, as they moved onto the next dance. Edward seemed to make a move towards me, but was cut off by a tall dark- haired couple I recognized from somewhere. I racked my brain for a moment. Jacob Black and Leah Clearwater. I'd seen them in passing during one of their visits to see Edward at Glen Glas. They turned to look at me for a moment, and then turned back to Edward, talking for a moment before breaking out into laughter about something. In the meantime, of course, Mike had joined me again, and was breathing heavily in my ear as he rubbed his leg up against mine. I tried to move away, and he followed me. I looked around desperate for support, and found that no one was watching. The Cullen's were all standing together, and were getting ready for the next dance.

Again, Mike was claimed by a woman to go dance, and again my eyes found Edward. I watched as he made his way around each dance, never making a mistake, dancing with lots of different women, sparkling his charm at them no doubt; making them feel like they were the most important person in the universe during the time he was with them.

At the end of each dance, Mike would seek me out, and then disappear again each time another dance was called.

At nine o'clock, the band took a break, and the guys made their way to the stage. Mike was standing next to me as I stared at the sight of Edward in front of the piano. He adjusted the microphone, moving it nearer to his mouth, while Emmett threw himself behind the drum- set, and Jasper picked up the violin.

The music started and I found myself gazing at Edward as he and Jasper sang something slow and soft in Gaelic. Mike made a grab for arm.

"Come beautiful Bella, come dance with me."

I shook my head. "Mike, no, I -" God, I didn't want to upset the guy, and I didn't want to cause a scene, but I wanted away from him. He was really creeping me out and I didn't want to be that close to his bad beer- breath.

He held on tighter, and I looked to Edward, who was still singing but looking straight at us, his face a mixture of anger and sadness. From nowhere I was moved away from Mike, and found myself in the arms of Carlisle.

"If I hadn't removed you," he said, smiling as he slowly turned me around in the middle of the dance floor, "I think Edward would have got off his piano stool, and used it as a weapon to hit poor Mike. Perhaps you could keep your, err, relationship with Mike away from Edward's eyes. It would be kinder."

I gasped. "No, no, it's not like that." I stumbled over my words.

"Whatever it's like Bella, it's how it's perceived. You leave on Wednesday. Let's just keep it simple, shall we?"

I nodded, feeling as if I'd just been told off by the head-teacher. I couldn't bring myself to argue with Carlisle; to tell him that Mike was making me feel nauseous, to tell him that I'd already slapped Mike hard, and it was heading that way again.

The guys' song came to an end, and everyone clapped. I discovered that Carlisle and I weren't alone on the dance floor. Alice was standing just behind me, having danced with Ben. She gave me a concerned smile, and rubbed my arm.

Jasper, standing by his microphone, announced that supper was ready, and the floor cleared as the masses made their way to the food serving tables.

I avoided Mike for the next hour, and watched as Jessica from the pub followed him around. He should be with her, not chasing me. She looked like she was interested in him, making me wonder if I should suggest it to him.

At about ten fifteen, the lead singer of the band called couples for the Strip the Willow. This was the one dance I had managed to memorize. It basically involved long lines of people and lots of turning. The video on YouTube had made it seem fairly simple.

I stood up from my corner where I had been hiding, and looked for a Cullen to dance with. I was met by Mike.

"Come on Beautiful Bella, we'll be the second couple. It's easy that way; you can watch the dance once through. Just remember, if someone stands in front of you, grab them by the left arm with your left arm and swing around in a circle with them." I sighed in defeat, and changed my shoes so that at least I wouldn't fall off the high heels and break my ankle. He grabbed my hand and led me to the dance floor.

I found myself in between Alice and the most gorgeous red-haired girl I'd ever seen. Rose was next to Alice, and on the other side of Rose was Esme. Across from the girls were their husbands, or in Esme's case, her friend. Across from the red-haired stunner was Edward, who looked at her the way he'd looked at me during the rugby match, but more so.

I felt my body heat up, from my toes through my legs, until the surge of molten anger reached my head. I turned to say something, anything, and Alice caught my hand and shook her head. The music started and we were off.

Edward and the red-head turned each other repeatedly, getting faster and faster for what seemed like an eternity. He then stood in front of me with his back to me, while the redhead swung around with Mike. Then she spun Edward around, and turned to Jasper. Then Edward, then Emmett, then Edward, then Carlisle, then finally Edward again, turning until they reached our end of the dance again. Then, he turned and swung me around, while she watched.

"Newton, eh?" he muttered in my ear, his tone accusing me of something that was, to be honest, nothing to do with him.

"Fuck you, Cullen."

The dance progressed. He danced with Alice, Red Head, Rose, Red Head, Esme, Redhead, and then they were back at our end of the dance. Again.

Redhead spun Mike. Edward spun me.

"Mature response, _Ms._ Swan." He sounded amused.

"Fuck you, Cullen." I sounded pissed.

They spun each other, and then spun each couple, ending up at the bottom of our dance set.

And then it was our go.

Mike spun me around, his hand holding my elbow, while mine held his. He gripped me so tightly that I could predict the bruises I'd have in the morning. Great: hand prints to match the footprint on the top of my thigh.

"Ignore Edward," said Jasper, kindly, as he threw me around.

"Give him hell," laughed Emmett, as he lifted me while we twirled.

"I hope you know what you're doing," whispered Carlisle as we turned less violently.

"Why chose Newton?" spat Edward, as his fingers dug into my arm.

Mike and I turned and turned and were back at the beginning.

We danced up to the top of the set again, him taking his turn spinning the ladies around.

As we started our final part of the dance, I caught Angela's eye across the dance floor. She had been with the lambs, feeding them, making sure they were warm and healthy. She grimaced at me, and gave me a thumbs up signal as Mike threw me around.

"Not Newton" Jasper smiled at me, his look slightly concerned.

"Make Edward work for it," laughed Emmett

"Wednesday," Carlisle pointed out.

"Choose me," Edward said calmly.

Mike spun me around and around; my arms hurt, and tears stung my eyes. I wanted out of here. It was too complicated; too many people had an opinion. I shouldn't have come, shouldn't have become personally invested in Glen Glas or in its people.

In Edward Cullen.

Angela appeared behind me. "Go home, Bella. See you at seven for the feeding, straight from Church. I'll dance your place."

I nodded, and tried to slip away. Ben bumped into me. "Sorry Bells, I've got to stand in too. See you at seven!"

Oh fucking great, Newton was following me. I searched for my high heels, and finding them under my table, slipped them into the Glen Glas bag. I felt a body behind me.

"Mike," I started, "I don't need help to get home. I'm tired and am on early lamb duty."

"You need to be taken home. I didn't stay off the drink tonight just so you could walk."

"Oh!"

Edward took my arm and guided me out of the hall. "You look fucking hot in that dress Isabella, fucking hot."

I looked back at the dance. Ben was with Redhead, Angela with Mike. Jacob and Leah were in the next set of dancers, and the two sets were joining to make a huge line of people dancing together. Everyone was laughing, having fun.

We got to his jeep, and although he helped me in, and buckled me up, neither of us said a word.

We drove to Glen Glas in silence.

He let us in through the front doors. We were still silent.

We walked through the main rooms and up to his area of the apartment. Nothing was said.

We reached my door.

I put my hand on the round handle, and turned to him say good night.

His lips smashed into mine as he fell towards me, resting his hands against the door on either side of my head.

He moved his hands so they cradled my cheeks.

We were kissing and licking and biting and kissing. My hands found their way to the waist of his kilt and pulled him to me, wanting him closer, knowing that this was possibly it. I didn't understand why he was doing this, what he wanted from me. I knew he should go back to the dance and claim his beautiful red-head.

I moved one hand away from his kilt and grasped the door-knob.

He moved back just a little, his breathing heavy and incredibly ragged, amplified in the silence in the apartment.

He grabbed my hand with his, our fingers waving together.

"Bella, I, err, I..."

I kissed him, my lips needing to be on his, wanting him to say nothing, to just let me enjoy this last moment.

"Oh God, Bella, I need you."

I moved my hand back a final time to the knob and opened my door, turning into my room.

I kept holding his hand, his thumb brushing up and down mine, sending tingles up my spine, and goose bumps everywhere else. Slowly, I pulled him into my room.

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**Please review this chapter if you haven't done so already. Thank you very much for reading On My Own. **


	10. Chapter 9

**Thank you to Kitty Kat & Sam, my superb betas. And to the truly wonderful ****grrlinterrupted who is pre-reading OMO before you get it, just to make sure it's up to scratch :)**

**Here's the rejig of Chapter ****Nine. Chapters ten through fifteen are with Sam. **

**Please accept my apologies for all the delays. Real life is a strange old thing and it demands that it comes first and that fanfic takes second place. We, of course, all know that isn't the case, and consequently real life & I are in a heated debate about this….**

**Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I own this story (apart from the Twilight names and any quotes), its ideas and events, Kiltward, and quite a lot of the p****laces. Official disclaimer is on my profile page and on my website (link to the website is on my profile page).**

**This story is rated M for a reason.**

* * *

Her small hand held onto mine surprisingly tightly as she pulled me into her bedroom. Intertwining my fingers with hers, I stroked her hand with my thumb feeling her soft skin, finding touching her for a prolonged period incredibly sexy. Just that simple contact exacerbated my body's reaction to her. I wondered for a second if my hands had really just become clammy because I was turned on, or if I was just stupidly nervous.

I shut the door quietly behind me, and we moved towards the window, the moonlight guiding our way. She switched on a small lamp that sat on the tiny desk, the light brightening the room just a little. Her clothes from the day were lying discarded on the back of a chair. Her purple wellies, fucking purple wellies, were sticking out from the bottom of the pile of clothes. She tried surreptitiously to kick them further under while she held my hand, wobbling slightly in her high heels, her system full of alcohol. Neither the heels nor the booze were conducive to decent balance. She steadied herself, locking her eyes back on mine, her face suddenly unsure. For the first time since she'd come to Glen Glas, she didn't look confident. She looked disconcerted, almost unnerved, like something might be wrong.

My brain went into overload, and started to churn out random thoughts. I didn't want her to think anything was wrong, with her, me or us. And if something was wrong, then I wanted to make it right for her. No, I clarified to myself. I didn't want to make it right for her; I _had_ to make it right for her. The urge to protect her was overwhelming, to erase her problems, to hold her in my arms and kiss her issues away.

I pulled her towards me, bringing our linked hands to my lips. Keeping my eyes on hers, I submerged myself in them, drawing our souls together and merging them.

_Submerged in eyes? Merging souls? Fuck Cullen. You're pussy whipped before having been anywhere near the pussy. For fuck's sake. Get a grip._

Gently shaking the thoughts around in my head, I brought my head down towards hers, desperate to feel her lips on mine. I pressed my forehead to hers and she closed her eyes, taking a slow, deep breath. I closed my eyes too.

"We don't have to -," I whispered. "We can just, errr…"

"Don't you want to? If you don't really want to, then we should stop." Her voice, a mere mumble, had an edge to it; an edge that suggested I had hurt her. _For fuck's sake, Bella._

"For fuck's sake, Bella." the filter was off again.. She pushed back slightly, and I opened my eyes, to meet hers which were wide and well, sad. I pulled her back firmly until our noses were again touching. _Right, Cullen. Show her how much you want her._

"I want you so much. I have never wanted anyone as much as I want you." I felt her face smile. Her whole face. I could feel her nose wrinkle slightly against mine, her eyebrows move a little, and her cheeks rise and fill out.

Her fingers were suddenly moving slowly through my hair, scratching at my scalp, the thumb on the other hand tracing tiny circles on mine. "I want you too.." She moved closer so that our bodies were touching. She laughed very gently at something, and shook her head, her hair moving softly around us both. "There's only one man for me, Edward Cullen." She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath in. She moved backwards, infinitesimally, still holding me, still raking, still stroking.

She breathed out. "You."

My mind was floating on a high of impossible dreams, foreign feelings & inevitable rejection. My lips crashed into hers, causing her head to move back with the force. Hard and deep, no preamble, no messing about with the licking of lips and the rubbing of noses. I wanted her so much, and apparently she wanted me. What the fuck- who would have guessed it? I tried to move her backwards, but the chair was in the way. I needed something to push her against to gain leverage, to make her _feel_ my kiss, feel how much I wanted her. Her ankles wobbled a bit, and I grasped her arms so she wouldn't fall.

"I think I had quite a lot to drink," she confessed as she slipped her hugely high heeled shoes off. My hands still gripped her arms, holding her up.

I guided her around the chair and back against the wall, pressing my mouth to hers, tasting wine and whiskey as I slid my tongue along her lips, tempting her mouth to open. I inhaled the scent of roses and face powder, moving my hands to take hold of her long, thick, soft hair, feeling it ripple around my fingers. I was on top of the fucking world.

And soon, hopefully, on top of Bella.

That thought made me smile as I kissed her.

She squirmed as I pressed my whole body against hers. Our mouths moved together, my hands moving over her sweater covered arms, her shoulders, around her neck, onto her face tracing her features.

My dick was, well, fucking hard. It had been pestering me on and off all evening. It was pressed so tightly against my kilt and sporran that it was actually physically painful. The hardness in itself was beyond what I considered possible after four pints of beer and two whiskey chasers. It now rested between bare flesh on one side, and the rough material of my kilt on the other, a dual sensation of pleasure and bizarre pain. The fact that Bella was two layers away, one of heavy tartan, and one of sporran leather, made it almost completely unbearable. It was the most marvelously taunting thing I had ever experienced.

I shifted slightly to ease the pressure, and she groaned into my mouth.

The vibration of her groans bounced off my tongue and surged through my body. I wanted her so badly and assumed by her actions up to this point that she wanted me too. The groans seemed to indicate that was the case.

My cock twitched, the friction now verging on the obscene. Still joined at the lips with our mouths moving in tandem, our breathing grew progressively harder and faster. I moved my hands over her clavicle and then sideways, feathering my fingers over her protruding bones. She was too thin. I hadn't noticed that before. I started to push her heavy cardigan off her shoulders, and she squirmed again to assist my actions. The sand colored wool fell to the floor, exposing her bare arms and dark blue dress. The pale light from the single lamp made her skin appear almost translucent.

I took a step back so I could look at her. We were often in close proximity, but up until this moment I hadn't had permission to study her. Her eyes opened widely again and were darker than I had remembered, her breathing was ragged, and her chest was rising and falling fast. She grabbed my kilt belt and tried to pull me back to her. I didn't budge an inch. Well, my cock moved, of its own accord: its desire to be close to her almost out-weighing the need the rest of my body and my mind were feeling.

"Goddamn it, Cullen," she rasped, her blackened pupils dancing with what could only be lust, "get your cute ass over here. Now!"

I smiled, really smiled, and looked at her beautiful face. She smiled back, black eyes flashing, lips parted. She started to move awkwardly, rolling one little foot, making her leg twist about slightly. She put her one arm in front of her body and held her elbow with the other hand. Color appeared in her face, her uncomfortable flush materializing.

She looked down.

I wasn't having that.

I lifted her chin up with my left hand, until her eyes stopped darting all over the room and finally settled on my face. I grinned at her again, rubbing my thumb across her soft, damp, and slightly swollen lips. She grinned back, her face still pink, and let out a delicate moan as I brushed the hair aside from her face.

"Don't hide your beautiful face from me. Ever," I half commanded, half begged. She started to move her head away again but I refused to let her, wanting to look at her before things got out of hand. Or ended.

I moved my hand from her hair and stroked her cheek, down her neck and to one strap of her dress. She breathed in heavily and shuddered.

Either she really wanted this, or she really didn't.

I looked into her eyes, searching for early rejection, but saw nothing of the sort. Hope maybe, lust definitely. An invisible sigh of relief went through my mind.

I slid the strap of her dress off her left shoulder, and it hung limply around her toned upper arm.

I brushed my right hand up to her chin, and cradling it for a moment, leaned forward and kissed her chastely. She moved in for more, but I pulled back, continuing to stroke her mouth, her chin, her cheeks, her jaw. I slid my left hand along her neck and collarbone, echoing the movements I had made on the other side, and dropped the second strap so that it hung loosely like its twin.

Nothing more happened for a second. I was holding her, touching her, attempting to treat her like a goddess, slowly worshipping her, and yet I had found a stumbling block already.

Her dress wasn't moving. In my imagination, I had seen it float gently to the floor, exposing racy underwear, puckered nipples, and tattooed hipbones. Currently, Bella was standing in front of me with a slightly amused grin on her face, crisp white bra straps still on her shoulders, navy dress straps holding her arms in place like shackles and nothing more happening.

"There's a zip," she whispered, and tried to move a strangled arm to the back of her dress.

_No. Don't you dare, Ms. Swan._

"Don't move. Keep very still." I held her arm, preventing her from opening the dress herself and spoiling my fun. I moved back up close to her, one hand beside her head, the other at her back fumbling around for the zipper.

Got it.

_I_ wanted to do it. I wanted to make her _mine_ by showing her that I wasn't an arse, a loser, or a buffoon.

I buried my face into her hair, allowing myself the pleasure of inhaling her rose-laced scent. As slowly as I could, I slid the zip down her back, pressing in slightly with my fingers as I dragged it towards her waist.

It gaped at the front and sides and as I let go, it slid down slightly by its own accord, settling momentarily on her hips. She swayed, and it fell to the ground, gathering around her bare feet.

She shuddered slightly, and I brought my mouth to her shoulder, kissing her, suddenly unable to hold back, passion and desire overtaking every rational thought. I kissed and sucked and licked and nipped, trailing my mouth around her neck, her collarbone, her shoulders.

I wanted her so badly, needed her so much. I thought that both my heads might explode sooner rather than later. Trying to gather my thoughts and self-control, I picked her up bridal-style and yet again our eyes met. I looked away, and taking in her white lacy bra and tiny white knickers, carried her over to her bed.

Her single bed. Which meant we had to be close to each other, or fall out.

I laid her down, her head on the pillows, one knee slightly raised, with her hands resting on her stomach. Her breathing was all over the place. She was pretty much panting, and I hadn't even started yet. What the fuck?

I stood back and kicked off my boots and then removed my rugby shirt and my sporran. I needed to feel her skin on mine. I needed her to feel me on her. I knelt down at the foot of the bed and kissed her toes. She giggled. I kissed her ankles, and then moved up her shins, alternating between each leg, gently pulling the raised leg down so that I could see her face as I kissed her. I licked and kissed her knees, loving the slightly salty taste of her skin, and then moved up to her thighs.

She rubbed her thighs together as I kissed them, and I smiled to myself as I slowly licked my way up the outside of one thigh and then the other, ending up at her waist. There was nothing more that I wanted than to hike my kilt up and pound her, to feel her cum around me, to yell out my name as she soaked me, but right now it was about her.

It had never been about the woman. Ever. I mean, I got them off, made a point of getting them off, made it fun for them, but for the first time ever I wanted the woman underneath me to enjoy herself first. I'd make her cum and cum and cum, scream my name out at the moment of explosion, to want me, to need me.

I licked along the top of her panties, rubbing her ribs with my thumbs, and moved upwards. She was starting to move her hips. I could smell that she was turned on and had to fight to control my cock as it tried to break out of my kilt, not wanting to be the gentleman, wanting to get inside her. Mouth or pussy. It didn't care. I cared. Just about.

_Keep focused Cullen. She wants you. Make her want you more. Make her screech your name so loudly that you're teased over breakfast in the morning. Make her want to stay past Wednesday._

Wednesday. Everything about me failed at that point. She was leaving. Leaving me. On Wednesday.

"Edward?" a small voice murmured. "Edward, please don't stop."

More quickly than I'd ever moved before, I shot up past her glorious perky breasts, and holding myself above her with my elbows so I didn't squash her tiny, perfect body, kissed her, harder than before, more demanding, the desire washing through. Our tongues met, twisting around, poking, thrusting, licking.

I brought my hands up to her magnificent tits and squeezed them both at the same time, and she squirmed but didn't pull away. I moved the cups of her bra off her breasts, and started to circle both nipples with my thumbs. She started to moan and wriggle. I kissed her face, her head moving from side to side, and then kissed down along her neck, making my way to her breasts. I took one hard deep-red nipple into my mouth and sucked slightly, causing her to gasp. I kept massaging the other breast, tugging on the nipple, pulling at it, biting at the other one, licking circles around it, pulling at it with my lips. She was panting and pleading and scraping her fingers through my hair roughly, tugging at it, moaning my name, begging me to be more forceful, telling me she wanted more.

My other hand was running up and down her side, from chest to hip, pressing harder and harder. I switched my mouth to the other breast, and moving over slightly to her side, ran my hand to the top of her knickers. She rubbed her thighs together again, her head thrown back slightly, her breathing all over the place.

"Please Edward. Please."

"What, love? Please, what?"

"Touch me."

I ran my fingers underneath the top of the elastic, noting momentarily that her skin was blank, no stars, and then tickled my way down towards my final goal.

She was mostly bare with a little hair; just a small strip running down the middle.

"Fuck me, Bella..." I muttered, trailing off as she giggled a little.

"Had to go the mainland for that," she laughed, sounding slightly more pissed than I had imagined. Her words were not slurring at all, but she was certainly making sure to enunciate them.

_Perhaps this was just a drunken fuck to her. _

_Fucks sake, Cullen. You're over-thinking it._

I pulled back slightly. I didn't want to be with her if she was drunk. I didn't want to take advantage of her.

"Edward." Our eyes met again.

"Edward. Please. I need you."

That was it.

I ran two fingers down the strip of hair and down the sides of her lower lips. She was soaked. Dripping. So unbelievably wet. Christ.

I watched her face as I rubbed up and down slightly, her eyes closed again, her head thrown back. She licked her lips as I used my thumb to circle her clit, gasping from the first sensations of pleasure. My pulsating cock hit her thigh repeatedly. I moved one finger inside her and felt her walls clamp around me. In went finger number two. Then three. She was so tight and so wet, and thrusting her hips up and down, her breathing getting faster, her whimpering becoming louder.

"Edward. Fuck. I'm going to cum. Please, make me cum."

I moved myself down hurriedly, taking her panties off with the hand that had, up until that point, been moving all over her fantastic body, playing with her nipples. Once they were off one ankle, I started to fondle her clit with one hand while grabbing her bottom with the other, bring her hips up slightly so that I could taste her, lick her.

"Edward, fuck. Edward," she started repeating my name as my tongue swirled around her, lapping up the wetness. I put my tongue inside her, scraping her lips with my teeth, and she screamed, grabbing my hair while she bucked her hips, fast. I pulled at her clit, and swirled my tongue as quickly as I could. She screamed again, and then she came, hard, fast, and all over my face. Wet Bella came undone because of me, and my fingers and my tongue. She thrashed and bucked, and then she twitched and shuddered as she came down, her hands in my hair, feeling my tongue still at work.

"Fuck Edward…" she started. I pulled myself up so that our faces were at the same level and kissed her gently on the lips.

"Well," she said, giggling slightly, "I never thought that I'd find out what I taste like! Edward, that was- " She stopped. And then giggled again.

I put my arms around her and held her as closely as I could, my heart banging in my chest, my cock pulsating under my kilt.

She ran her hands along my chest, pinching at my nipples as she passed them.

"Okay, Mr. Cullen," she grinned as she tried to sit up. "It's your turn."

"My turn?"

She shuffled down the tiny bed, and pushed her hand up and under my kilt.

"Your turn."

I almost came there and then.

Her tiny warm hand wrapped itself around the head of my cock, and she circled her thumb over the little hole, pushing the skin back, covering the area with the pre-cum that was there. I scooted round so I was lying on my back, and she giggled again. I'd never thought that Bella was one for giggling.

She then went onto all fours, her panties hanging off one ankle, her breasts hanging over the cups of her bra, and she pushed my kilt up slightly, and then bending her head down, disappeared under it, her mouth replacing her thumb, her hand slowly and purposefully stroking down the shaft of my concrete cock. Her tongue started to flick the head, and her hand moved up and down, up and down. On the third stroke her mouth followed her hand, and she was taking me in, as much as she could, pulling up and down until I hit the back of her throat. I felt her gag a little, and then she moved back up again, using her hands to stroke the bits her tongue and teeth couldn't reach. Her hair was caressing my legs, and each time she moved down my cock, it puddled around my balls, and each time she moved back up it dragged away, tantalizing me, brushing me softly, creating a different sort of feeling, but heightening the sensations.

I could feel my balls starting to tighten up, feel the pressure in my stomach building, and knew that it wouldn't take long. She was sucking and nipping and then taking me out of her mouth and running her tongue and teeth up and down, from the head to my balls and back up again.

She was giving me fucking great head, and any second now I was going to cum all over the inside of my kilt and all over her perfect soft hair.

"Bella, love, you don't have to do this," I spluttered out, my brain telling me I'm saying the right thing, my body telling my brain to shut the fuck up and let her get on with it. Her little hand cupped my balls and squeezed slowly and tightly, the other hand rubbed at the bottom of my shaft and her mouth covered the rest of it, taking me in, pulling out, sucking in, blowing out, nipping in, licking out, sucking...

"Oh Fuck, Bella, that's it, that's right, I'm coming, now I'm coming, Love, please, arughhhhhhhh, Bella!"

I came yelling out her name. She kept moving up and down, swirling that damn tongue around, taking as much of it as she could.

When I finally stopped pulsating and my cock started to go limp, she crawled out from under her tartan tent, a massive smile across her face.

"I take it, Edward, that was okay?"

"Okay?" I choked as I sat up and tried to pull her towards me. "Okay?" I laughed as I undid her bra and slid it off her arms, while she kicked her white lace knickers away. "Okay?" I murmured into her hair as she tried to unbuckle my kilt belt, and then the straps on my kilt.

"Bella Swan. That was more than okay. That was-" I paused as she stripped my kilt away and then pulled off my thick socks, wrinkling her nose slightly as she did.

She slid back up the bed towards me, resting her head on my chest, wrapping her arms around me, holding on tightly.

"-that was fucking fantastic."

I rolled my body slightly so that we were facing each other, as my cock decided that was the moment it was going to recover, and stood straight upright, stabbing her in the stomach. She laughed, turned around slightly, and fell off the bed, landing with a thump, arse first, on the floor.

I leapt towards her and as I leaned over the side of the bed was met with the sight of Bella lying flat on the floor, the sheepskin rug caressing her form, her hair spread out behind her, her perfect body vibrating with laughter.

I started to laugh too, deciding that if she was laughing then the chances were that she was fine. After a few moments of hilarity, I pulled her back up to the bed, laying her half next to me, half on top of me. As I pulled the covers over us, I tucked her body under my other arm, her head on my chest.

I kissed her forehead, and she settled one hand into my side and the other on my cock, rubbing it gently, slowly, caressing it.

"Love, if you want more, you only have to say so," I laughed into her hair.

"In a minute," she yawned, and stilled her hand.

Within seconds her breathing pattern changed and I realized that she had gone to sleep. I snuggled my nose into her hair, inhaling the rose smell again, loving the distant scent of the face powder. I felt on top of the world. I could live with the hard-on. I could live with most things. Tomorrow we could talk and tomorrow we could work out how to keep her here.

I didn't want to be on my own. I wanted Bella Swan. I needed Bella Swan. She couldn't go.

When I woke, four hours later, I was on my own. I reached out for her, but no one was there. I knew I was in her room because it smelled of her perfume, and the bed was too damn small.

There was a warm Bella shaped gap next to where I had been lying.

I doubled checked the time. Red lights blinked at me, drilling into my fluffy brain that it was four fifteen in the morning. Fuck.

Easter Sunday. Dawn Service with the villagers at five thirty. Breakfast with the family was now scrapped due to lamb feeding at seven o'clock. The village kids and visitors Easter egg hunt was at noon, and the family lunch at three o'clock. Tanya was home for that. The thought of Tanya made me happy. My favourite cousin, my almost sister. She had a new boyfriend, and was loath to leave him for the weekend, but had caved when I'd pleaded on the phone. The red hair was a bit of a shock, but she was never one to sit still. Tanya lived her life to the fullest, and I loved her for it. I had wanted her opinion of Bella. I should have introduced them last night, but the situation hadn't arisen. At Church maybe, or the Easter egg hunt. I hoped they'd get on. It wouldn't change anything if they didn't, but I just hoped they did. I'd be happy if they did. It would be perfect.

I stretched out and put my hands behind my head, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply.

When I woke again, Bella was wrapped up with me, her strong legs enveloping mine, one hand on my chest, the other tracing the Celtic patterns on my upper arm. I lay still, enjoying the sensations, wondering if I had time to take this further.

"I know you're awake, Edward," she teased quietly, the hand on my chest scratching idly through the few fine hairs. She kissed my shoulder, following one of the inked lines there, with her lips this time.

I could feel the heat growing between her thighs, as my morning wood turned into concrete-I'm-in-bed-with-Bella wood. I grabbed at the hand on my chest, and brought it up to my lips, kissing it, each finger, one at a time, smiling as I touched her repeatedly.

She snuggled closer, her wet pussy rubbing against my thigh.

I glanced over at the clock. Four thirty-six. We could have twenty minutes and then get ready for Church quickly. I turned towards her, making the decision for us, and pulled her to me, chest to chest, mouth to mouth, tongues touching, hands groping and grabbing, coaxing and caressing. This was faster than last night, more desperate, more needy. She rolled over onto her back, keeping me with her, so I was hovering over her. I moved one hand down between her thighs, feeling the slickness of her pussy, the wetness that I caused, that was there because of me. Because she thought I was hot and sexy and she wanted me. _Me._

I kissed her harder and harder, grinding myself into her, and in return she was crushing into me as my cock was moving between her legs, soaking up her wetness and spreading it over my length.

This was too much, it was too fast, and it wasn't how I'd planned our first time, but I wanted her and she wanted me and-

There was a loud banging at the door. We both stilled immediately, freezing in place. I fell forwards slightly, but kept my mouth on hers. To keep her quiet. Obviously.

"Bella," Alice's voice rang out, more cheerfully than allowed at this time of day. "Coffee's on. We should get a move on. If you get some jeans and stuff together for feeding the lambs after Church, Jasper will put them in the car."

Bella moved her head slightly, so that our mouths were no longer touching. I winced at the lack of connection.

"I'm, err, up Alice. I'll be ten minutes. Would you put some toast in the machine for me?"

She sounded clear as a bell and very un-hungover, which was impressive, as she'd had quite a bit to drink.

"Okay," Alice shouted back, and we were giggling into each others shoulders like naughty school children who'd almost been caught.

"You'd better go before she comes back," Bella whispered. "I'll see you at Church."

I pulled away from her reluctantly, and sat up, rubbing my hands through my hair.

"I ought to take the dogs out anyway," I confessed, and then, "Oh Shit. The dogs. I forgot the damn dogs last night. They'll have pee'd all over the fucking kitchen. Fuck!"

"Well, they weren't in there two hours ago when I got up for some water," she looked up at me, "I'm thinking that someone realized late last night that you wouldn't be taking them out, and sorted it out for you."

I rubbed my hands through my hair again and rubbed my eyes, as she kissed my back, making little lines of kisses up and down my shoulder blades.

"Oh well. They'll find out about us soon enough, I suppose."

She stopped kissing me.

There was silence for a moment, except for the expected pitter patter of rain against the bedroom window.

"About that," she started, rubbing her hands up and down my arms, slowly and deliberately, her breasts pressed up against my back. "Let's talk about that later. C'mon now, Laird of Glen Glas, time to act out your part."

I got out of bed, and grabbed my kilt, shoes and socks, and made for the door. I turned to look at her, my heart sinking. I was nothing to her but a drunken fuck, scratching an itch. She was watching me, her knees up at her chest, one arm holding them in place, the other in her hair, pushing it away from her face. I strode back to the bed and kissed her firmly, just once. She kissed me back equally firmly, a hand moving around my head as our lips moved. My heart soared again and I moved back to the door.

I looked at her as I turned the door handle. "Yes. Later."

I shut the door quietly behind me, and walked straight into the wall. Or Emmett as my Mother called him.

* * *

**Some of the lines I'm most proud of are in this chapter. So there. **

**Thank you to those who have reviewed the previous chapters. **

**Please review if you have the time and the inclination. Thank you very much for reading On My Own. **


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